SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]

#201

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 10:58 PM UTC

Teever wrote: post #192

WalterBright wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In "V2" page 179 Dornberger writes: "Do you know that your closest colleagues (including von Braun) have stated in company at Zinnowitz that it had never been their intention to make a weapon of war out of he rocket? That they had worked, under pressure from yourself (Dornberger) at the whole business of development and only in order to obtain money for their experiments and the confirmation of their theories? That t…

You've mentioned Dornberger's book to me in a previous conversation regarding Von Braun, and though I haven't yet had a chance to read it I just did some research on it. From what I can tell it looks like like an amazing source for technical details of the V2 rocket but there are many problems with it that make it unsuitable for the kind of argument that you're attempting to make here. First of all, the book wasn't w…

Have you ever found a refutation of von Braun being arrested by the Gestapo and scheduled to be executed?

I don't know why arresting von Braun would be nazi propaganda - it paints the nazis as rather stupid.

BTW, I read the book because of the technical details, which were quite interesting to me.

Google "was von braun arrested by the nazis" and you'll see essentially the same thing I posted.

Confirmation of the same by "An Interview with Michael Neufeld, PhD, of the National Air and Space Museum": https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/wernher-von-b...

Re: SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]

#202

Post by ggreer » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 11:18 PM UTC

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #155

fsloth wrote: post #11

Whoa the acceleration from the start surprised me. It’s huge and it just … zipped off the pad like a bullet (ok not real bullet but still).

Given how little payload is onboard at the moment, what an empty can starship is, i sure hope for their sake there is a lot a lot a lot of zip to spare right now.

The ship had a little over 34 tons of payload, but there should be almost no difference in thrust to weight ratio at launch for an empty vs full payload bay. The stack itself weighs over 5,000 tons at launch. Assuming it’s 5,000 tons at liftoff, adding another 65 tons of payload would change the thrust to weight ratio from 1.65 to 1.63.

Re: SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]

#203

Post by smallmancontrov » Sun, Jul 26, 2026, 2:03 AM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #175

smallmancontrov wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can: thinking that a far-right industrialist at a far-right victory celebration making a far-right hand gesture, with perfect form, in duplicate, didn't mean it.

Well you can start by correcting the point that it was a far-right victory celebration or that a far-right guesture was made.

Why would I correct myself? I'm already correct on both counts.

Re: SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]

#204

Post by eudamoniac » Sun, Jul 26, 2026, 2:17 AM UTC

smallmancontrov wrote: post #197

eudamoniac wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole comment chain is so baffling to me. HN is relatively intelligent, but we have people here seriously believing Musk did a Nazi salute on stage and that he's an actual Nazi. I don't know what to make of it. I have to imagine it's motivated reasoning, because of the people who say it was a Nazi salute, approximately 100% of them already hated the guy. I've seen no one suddenly swayed. Fwiw I have no strong fe…

Then your eyes are excellent at ignoring everything he said in the last 4 years on Twitter and did last year in the white house. Not to mention the salute itself. Or themself -- there were two, back to back, in case you missed the first one.

I have assessed your post history and it is literally 100% political argumentation, which aligns with my biases about what kind of people would write this sort of comment. That is not what HN is for.

Re: SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]

#205

Post by throwaway2037 » Sun, Jul 26, 2026, 3:44 AM UTC

FLHerne wrote: post #91

agent86 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That should clear the next flight to go to orbit and deploy operational satellites! Mid-stream they said they were deploying 20 real V3 Starlink satellites. At the end of the stream the said all 20 had checked out as well.

They were real satellites but deployed on the suborbital trajectory of this flight, so will have burned up over the Indian ocean about the time that the ship re-entered. The goal was to get about 20 minutes of testing the new satellites in space, not for them to have any chance of becoming operational. Starship hasn't been entering a full orbit so far because it would be really bad if the relight burn did fail - chun…

I could not believe they sacrificed twenty sats. What do think was the cost?

Re: SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]

#206

Post by throwaway2037 » Sun, Jul 26, 2026, 3:45 AM UTC

stinkbeetle wrote: post #101

a34729t wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a much biglier support vessel this time, almost 300ft long IIRC. So maybe they can recover it?

It might be possible. Allegedly they had previously asked the Australian government about towing the ship back to a port. Marine recovery can be much more difficult than it might seem though. Towing this nearly 200ft structure weighing a decent fraction of the weight of the boat that is not designed to be seaworthy, potentially full of explosive gasses and that could rapidly start breaking up and taking on water, nea…

    > Allegedly they had previously asked the Australian government about towing the ship back to a port.

Any sources? I cannot find any. What was their response?

Re: SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]

#207

Post by smallmancontrov » Sun, Jul 26, 2026, 5:05 AM UTC

eudamoniac wrote: post #204

smallmancontrov wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then your eyes are excellent at ignoring everything he said in the last 4 years on Twitter and did last year in the white house. Not to mention the salute itself. Or themself -- there were two, back to back, in case you missed the first one.

I have assessed your post history and it is literally 100% political argumentation, which aligns with my biases about what kind of people would write this sort of comment. That is not what HN is for.

You didn't even read the first page. Motivated vision strikes again.

Re: SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]

#208

Post by throwaway2037 » Sun, Jul 26, 2026, 5:23 AM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #22

appplication wrote: post #19

It’s interesting the cognitive dissonance this brings out in me. As much as I think Musk carries a fairly reprehensible aura, I would still like to see SpaceX succeed. Space has a funny, transcendent way of inspiring us.

The tiny part of SpaceX that is actually about space, yes. Unfortunate that it has been bolted onto the hulk of Musk's AI fever dreams.

Tiny part? Huh? Falcon 9, Dragon, Starlink, Starship. That is a LOT of space.

Re: SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]

#209

Post by fancy_pantser » Sun, Jul 26, 2026, 5:52 AM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #205

FLHerne wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were real satellites but deployed on the suborbital trajectory of this flight, so will have burned up over the Indian ocean about the time that the ship re-entered. The goal was to get about 20 minutes of testing the new satellites in space, not for them to have any chance of becoming operational. Starship hasn't been entering a full orbit so far because it would be really bad if the relight burn did fail - chun…

I could not believe they sacrificed twenty sats. What do think was the cost?

Based on v1 satellite cost estimates, under $5MM for 20. It was v3 sats, don't know the cost on those yet.

Re: SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]

#210

Post by modeless » Sun, Jul 26, 2026, 6:04 AM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #205

FLHerne wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were real satellites but deployed on the suborbital trajectory of this flight, so will have burned up over the Indian ocean about the time that the ship re-entered. The goal was to get about 20 minutes of testing the new satellites in space, not for them to have any chance of becoming operational. Starship hasn't been entering a full orbit so far because it would be really bad if the relight burn did fail - chun…

I could not believe they sacrificed twenty sats. What do think was the cost?

I imagine they built these a long time ago (anticipating fewer test flight problems) and have probably improved the design since then making these obsolete. They are going to build thousands so they can't be too precious.