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SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

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Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#191

Post by ajnin »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #55
nynx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a young person (21), I feel the same way. Space exploration and a beautiful future suddenly seems achievable with hard work and a lot of engineering instead of just feeling impossible.

> As a young person (21), I feel the same way. Space exploration and a beautiful future suddenly seems achievable with hard work and a lot of engineering instead of just feeling impossible. That is the goal for me, I'm not going to Mars and I knew that as soon as I went to the MDRS. I also made it an effort to make the director (commander on several mission) to realize how important it is motivate the younger generat…

> MDRS

Is it Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station ? Space nerds tend to abuse acronyms almost as much as developers.

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#192

Post by ajnin »

inglor_cz wrote: post #174
marricks wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd really think a bit more about it. We have so many problems here and none are solved by leaving. Climate change, wealth inequality, hungry, poor. None of the billionaires (Musk/Bezos) building rockets treat their workers terribly well now, and their end game will just be exploiting workers around the solar system. Coming as a past fan of space exploration is was pretty devastating to realize...

"terribly well" What would be your standard in treating employees terribly well? And it is strange to mention Musk and Bezos side by side. Their mode of employment is very different. In Amazon, you are a preprogrammed cog in a spinning retail machine, micromanaged and followed everywhere by algorithms that seek to squeeze maximal output from you and punish you for slight deviations from the script (such as "not havin…

I think there is a certain discrepancy between how progressive Musk is in technological terms, and how he behaves like any other billionaire in social terms. Look for example how he pushed for the reopening of the Tesla factories despite covid lockdowns, potentially putting the workers lives at risk. Or how he recently tweeted against the US stimulus package while Tesla is receiving billions in corporate aid.

This discrepancy is preventing me from fully cheering for the man, and I guess it causes a certain cognitive dissonance and an irrational defense of everything the man does by his fans.

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#193

Post by VectorLock »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #133
VectorLock wrote: post #27

Looks like someone left a tarp in it that caught fire at one point.

It looked more like metal foil shielding to me

Hard to tell what it is, looked like a thin plastic fabric like some kind of sheeting that was hanging loosely in there.

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#194

Post by greedo »

areoform wrote: post #152
valuearb wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, for such an expert you sure get a lot of things wrong and wrapped up in minor issues if no consequence. 1. Project Morpheus was a mostly inconsequential project just retreading the same areas pioneered by the DC-X. 2. Other than propellant, it has nothing to do with Raptor, likely the most advanced rocket engine ever made. The Raptor is the first successful full flowed staged combustion engine ever. This test al…

I appreciate and respect your enthusiasm. I wish more people were as passionate about spaceflight as you. Raptor shares the pintle-type injector, which was designed for the LEM and was part of the technology transfer to SpaceX as a part of their participation in the overarching COTS/CRS programs. The engine's design was partly funded by the USAF, and is a part of a rich history of alternate engine designs that all le…

>I hope this comment helps you adjust your mental model to a better picture of the industry.

I hope you realize that not only are you getting downvoted for factual inaccuracies, style of writing etc, but this passive aggressive coda at the end does you no favors...

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#195

Post by greedo »

qayxc wrote: post #33
greedo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the goals of the launch. If they met their goal criteria, and sticking the landing wasn't one of the goals, then it's a success.

I'm pretty sure a successful landing was one of the goals. It just might have been a "nice to have"-kind of goal. During prototyping there's only one type of test that isn't a success: a test that fails for a previously known reason (e.g. repeating a known mistake or some external factor like earthquakes, flooding or weather) and that you learned nothing from.

Elon explicitly tweeted the mission's goals:

"Goals are to test 3 engine ascent, body flaps, transition from main to header tanks & landing flip."

So the SpaceX team went four for four...

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#196

Post by benhurmarcel »

nynx wrote: post #60
Melting_Harps wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a young person (21), I feel the same way. Space exploration and a beautiful future suddenly seems achievable with hard work and a lot of engineering instead of just feeling impossible. That is the goal for me, I'm not going to Mars and I knew that as soon as I went to the MDRS. I also made it an effort to make the director (commander on several mission) to realize how important it is motivate the younger generat…

Getting involved is a dream of mine, but it's been quite difficult for me to get my foot in the door, so to speak.

First requirement is to be American. That rules out most people.

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#197

Post by Cthulhu_ »

zaroth wrote: post #88

I swear the thrust vectoring algorithm was just plain showing off at the very end. Just super cool to watch, looks like a render not real life; https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1336849897987796992?s=21

I think the 'looks like a render' effect is multiple factors; there's some distortion and the like due to distance and heat (you can sorta tell it's on a very long zoom?), high frame rate and high resolution. I think a lot of people aren't yet used to high frame rate video. I mean movies were 23 frames per second for a long time, and the reactions to 60fps films was... averse. The Hobbit was one of the first that tried that I believe, and it seriously messed with the suspension of disbelief.

edit: another comment mentions it may be 120 frames per second footage.

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#198

Post by hwillis »

chasd00 wrote: post #80
ansible wrote: post #4

Great flight! Elon tweeted that the header tank pressure was low: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1336809767574982658 There was also a substantial green flame coming from the raptor engine used for landing. Group consensus over on /r/SpaceX is that it was copper burning. We're amazed the engine didn't explode sooner.

as soon as I saw the green I thought "uhoh". That's called running "engine rich". still, so amazing to see the belly flop and relight.

Huh, I assumed it was TEB to keep the reignition stable but apparently raptors have electronic ignition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqCatb2oApU

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#199

Post by hwillis »

colechristensen wrote: post #134
chasd00 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as soon as I saw the green I thought "uhoh". That's called running "engine rich". still, so amazing to see the belly flop and relight.

I’m a great fan of all of the “this is fine” sort of phrases for engineering failures. “engine rich” is a new one for me today, joining things like letting the magic blue smoke out of electronics and rapid unplanned disassembly.

While it isn't humorous, "delta P event" is so dryly understated that IMO it belongs (when not involving human tragedy). Delta P events would be explosions if they happened in air. As violent as an atmospheric shockwave is, the speed of sound is >4x higher underwater, in a medium that is >800x heavier. The amount of casual violence implied in a "delta P event" is profoundly unnerving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flzpRbWl8bQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzRb2vMfGyk

Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

#200

Post by hackerfromthefu »

inglor_cz wrote: post #174
marricks wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd really think a bit more about it. We have so many problems here and none are solved by leaving. Climate change, wealth inequality, hungry, poor. None of the billionaires (Musk/Bezos) building rockets treat their workers terribly well now, and their end game will just be exploiting workers around the solar system. Coming as a past fan of space exploration is was pretty devastating to realize...

"terribly well" What would be your standard in treating employees terribly well? And it is strange to mention Musk and Bezos side by side. Their mode of employment is very different. In Amazon, you are a preprogrammed cog in a spinning retail machine, micromanaged and followed everywhere by algorithms that seek to squeeze maximal output from you and punish you for slight deviations from the script (such as "not havin…

I recall hearing Musks engineers are also not paid very well, despite the expectation to work very hard.
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