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SpaceX launches Starship v3 rocket

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Re: SpaceX launches Starship v3 rocket

#161

Post by laughing_man »

hgoel wrote: post #123
zugi wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've seen how irrational and ignorant stock traders are from other publicly traded space companies. Absolutely true, but ignorant stock traders making irrational trades only matters if company management pays attention to them. Musk will maintain complete control of SpaceX even after the IPO, so he can focus on long-term value rather than short-term ups and downs. Of course, over time, if more shares are issued, t…

The argument for the IPO was to fund their space datacenters project, if Musk could afford to ignore the stock price, that wouldn't be needed.

As I understand it he will retain control of the company in a similar arrangement to the one Zuckerberg has at Meta. Anyone who buys SpaceX stock is just along for the ride.

Re: SpaceX launches Starship v3 rocket

#162

Post by zardo »

p-e-w wrote: post #14
ajross wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is true, but at the same time: this is Starship Flight 12. The whole point of Starship is that it's a reusable vehicle with easy turnaround and quick maintenance. And in particular it's supposed to be different than the other reusable vehicle with easy turnaround and quick maintenance, which turned out to be sort of a boondoggle. Yet, they've now hand-built and destroyed twelve of these things across multiple r…

But all of those 12 launches happened in just 3 years, and cost a tiny fraction of other major spaceflight development programs. For reference, SLS has been in development for 5 times as long, and cost 15-20 times as much, as Starship, and they still haven’t landed people on the Moon, which has been one of the stated goals since the Constellation program in 2005. I don’t see how the number of failures matters if the…

It's Starship that's supposed to do the landing on the moon. If the next few test flights don't go well it won't be ready for Artemis III next year.

Re: SpaceX launches Starship v3 rocket

#165

Post by mlyle »

Octoth0rpe wrote: post #5
Geee wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing / hoping that the engine outs we're planned, or that they ran the engines with slightly different parameters to test them. If it's just unreliability then it might be a hard problem to solve.

> If it's just unreliability then it might be a hard problem to solve. It might, but it certainly helps having a ton of them around. Given that they used 42 of them today and 2 failed in some fashion, we'll call that a 1:21 failure rate. On a more typical rocket with say 10 engines (eg falcon 9), there's a good chance they wouldn't have seen the same failure till flight 3.

Adjusted wald intv'l gives us for 2 observed out of 39 gives us a "true" failure rate from 1 in 200 to 1 in 6 (95% CI).

Re: SpaceX launches Starship v3 rocket

#166

Post by throwaway85825 »

b112 wrote: post #132
throwaway85825 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shuttle required long expensive refurbishment after each flight.

Just made me realise, this is just like the F-35. Its turn around time is ridiculous, it has to be maintained with specialized equipment/hangers, along with external contractor assistance. Compared to the Gripen, as an example, which can land on a freeway and be up in the air again in a few minutes. One was designed to be used in war, in desperate scenarios, with no ability to coddle it. The other, the F-35? Is desig…

The F-35 is designed to be able to break into and defeat modern air defense networks.

The gripen is a much less capable non expeditonary platform designed to maximize asymmetric losses if sweden is invaded. As a small country sweden has to follow a porcupine strategy to deter invasion.

Presently the actual comparable to the F-35 is attritable drones, which is why every mid-size and major power is developing them.

Re: SpaceX launches Starship v3 rocket

#167

Post by throwaway85825 »

noir_lord wrote: post #149
b112 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just made me realise, this is just like the F-35. Its turn around time is ridiculous, it has to be maintained with specialized equipment/hangers, along with external contractor assistance. Compared to the Gripen, as an example, which can land on a freeway and be up in the air again in a few minutes. One was designed to be used in war, in desperate scenarios, with no ability to coddle it. The other, the F-35? Is desig…

Agreed and specifically in the case of the Gripen the “test condition” was “Needs to be serviceable by a few conscripts working under the direction of one person who knows what they are doing”. It’s an extremely different design goal, the US doesn’t mind exotic weapons that require exquisite (and expensive) methods of servicing, they have the budget and the assumption that a well equipped air field will be immaculate…

That's a reason the Mig-29 is no longer in production. Point defense fights are obsolete.

The F-35 was just in a war, in Iran. It performed as expected and was able to roll back Iran's air defense network in days.

Re: SpaceX launches Starship v3 rocket

#168

Post by throwaway85825 »

p_l wrote: post #157
Gravityloss wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's also some exaggerations about the differing highway landing capabilities of various aircraft. [1] is a video showing Eurofighter, F/A-18 and F-35 all landing on a highway in an exercise. Capability with stores and fuel load is another thing but I've read material that doesn't find the contemporary aircraft drastically different in that regard. Now, maintenance hours per flight hour and general operabi…

Landing is the trivial part, though the USAF traditions of "FOD walk" do seem funny to air forces where donations you found out the aircraft spent whole day flying with maintenance toolkit left in intake. The maintenance is the real difference - US specifically USAF gear is designed for nice air conditioned hangars to do regular maintenance, Gripen, MiG-29, and to way lower effect F-18 (when compared with F-16) - the…

The main reason the Mig29s have a reputation for easy maintenance is because they don't replace parts, they just throw away the whole airframe. The structural and engine service life is like 1/10th that of western fighters.

Re: SpaceX launches Starship v3 rocket

#169

Post by itishappy »

dylan604 wrote: post #121
itishappy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, they've left some performance on the table: > Sprint accelerated at 100 g, reaching a speed of Mach 10 (12,000 km/h; 7,600 mph) in 5 seconds. Such a high velocity at relatively low altitudes created skin temperatures up to 6,200 °F (3,400 °C), requiring an ablative shield to dissipate the heat. The high temperature caused a plasma to form around the missile, requiring extremely powerful radio signals to reach it…

I’m really struggling to find a point to this comment

It's a joke. An excuse to share one of my favorite rockets. A rocket that happens to uniquely support your point.

Re: SpaceX launches Starship v3 rocket

#170

Post by bakies »

dylan604 wrote: post #69
generuso wrote: post #11

The views from Ship's engine bay looked rather ominous -- with the red glow visible in multiple places, and something venting furiously from the broken engine. It was a pleasant surprise that the ship did not explode and not only that, but it even landed exactly on target. Guidance system software engineers have done a very good job! The booster not completing the return part of the flight was disappointing. They had…

Hopefully NASA ups their game for Artemis III

Well it was supposed to be a moon landing, but SpaceX didn't get their stuff developed. Artemis II flew by the moon btw, I think that's more impressive than SpaceX crashing a bunch of suborbital flights into the ocean while behind schedule.
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