Starship Flight 7 • Hacker News Board

Re: Starship Flight 7

#241

Post by Retric » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 1:16 AM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #200

Retric wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arlines are extremely cautious around these kinds of one off events. It’s not about the calculated risks, but the uncertainty around if they have the right information in the first place. Sure it may have broken up at 145km miles, but what if someone messed up and it actually was 14.5km etc.

No, airlines do not build in a safety factor sufficient to cover an important measurement being off by a factor of 10. They don't ground flights because the pilot might load 2,000 litres of fuel instead of 20,000 litres. They don't take evasive action in case the other plane is travelling at 5,000 knots instead of 500 knots. They don't insist on a 30-km runway because the runway published as 3 km might only be 300 me…

You misunderstood what I’m saying. Airlines have systems to validate the amount of fuel loaded and currently aboard aircraft that have been battle tested across decades including fixes due to past issues etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236

They don’t have that level of certainty around what altitude a rocket exploded, or other one off event.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#242

Post by romaaeterna » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 1:18 AM UTC

@elonmusk Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity.

Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and probably increase vent area. Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#243

Post by ijidak » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 1:19 AM UTC

Cu3PO42 wrote: post #85

terramex wrote: post #76

Looks like second stage broke up over Caribbean, videos of the debris (as seen from ground): https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662?t=HdHF... https://x.com/realcamtem/status/1880026604472266800 https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115 Moment of the breakup: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/

What a strangely beautiful sight. While I was excited to see ship land, I'm also happy I get to see videos of this!

Looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#244

Post by exitb » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 1:20 AM UTC

zqna wrote: post #183

Can someone tell me what's the point of all this? To export capitalism outside of solar system?

The point of a fully reusable launch vehicle? Similar to a fully reusable airplane or a car, I suppose.

We have various interests in sending things to space, why not do it cheaply?

Re: Starship Flight 7

#245

Post by ijidak » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 1:20 AM UTC

terramex wrote: post #76

Looks like second stage broke up over Caribbean, videos of the debris (as seen from ground): https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662?t=HdHF... https://x.com/realcamtem/status/1880026604472266800 https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115 Moment of the breakup: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE54iL7xbZL/?igsh=dTNtZ2Q4aHl...

It's beautiful. Looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#246

Post by cruffle_duffle » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 1:22 AM UTC

artemonster wrote: post #53

I like how chopsticks catch (a very impressive feat) completely distracts everyone from totally fucked timeline and already spent budget on mars mission. Its like any criticism is being drowned in loud cheers. Only time will tell, but I hope I will be wrong on this one

They are making the impossible merely late. Which, you know, is still pretty fucking cool.

I’d love to see any other country or competitor catch a stainless steel rocket larger than the Statue of Liberty that was just cruising back to earth at sub orbital velocity. Everybody else is so far behind it’s not even funny.

Spacex is cool as shit. Screw the “skeptics” and haters. Some people have a complete lack of imagination.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#247

Post by jacobgkau » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 1:22 AM UTC

thisiscrazy2k wrote: post #152

mardifoufs wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the criticism exactly? Like I don't get your point? Yes they are behind on timelines and on Mars, does that mean that we should post reddit-tier cynical comments every time about that? I'm not saying that you're doing that, it's more that I don't get why this is surprising. And on the other hand, it's also funny to see how "skeptics" (whatever that means in this case) dismiss or belittle achievements that were…

[flagged]

They're the ones who were sent in to return two humans from the ISS after Boeing's ship malfunctioned last year. The explosions are typically from R&D projects; SpaceX is capable and practiced at transporting humans (and cargo) without their ships blowing up, and that's where most of their actual business currently is. (The Dragon is the vehicle they use for manned ISS missions.)

Re: Starship Flight 7

#248

Post by DeepYogurt » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 1:23 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #150

inglor_cz wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like work of the Flight Termination System. Something measurable had to go very wrong.

> Something measurable had to go very wrong Or slightly wrong. An FTS is programmed to be conservative. Particularly on unmanned flights. Doubly particularly on reëntry. Triply so on experiments bits.

Depends on the programmers I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Starship Flight 7

#249

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 1:24 AM UTC

Will be interesting to hear the postmortem on the second stage. The booster part seemed to work pretty flawlessly with the exception of a non-firing engine on boost back which then did fire during the landing burn.

If the person doing their on-screen graphics is reading this, I wonder if you have considered showing tank LOX/CH4 remaining as a log graph. I believe it decreases logrithmically when being used (well it would if you keep 'thrust' constant) so that would create a linear sweep to the 'fuel level' status.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#250

Post by rigrassm » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 1:24 AM UTC

m4rtink wrote: post #211

rigrassm wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken like someone who is generating their opinion from their channel name alone. Those "independent streamers" provide live launch streams with multiple feeds using their own equipment and to top it off they have numerous very knowledgeable hosts for all their streams. At this point I suspect they are covering every US based launch from all the major players. Hell, today they broadcasted both the New Glenn and Star…

Frankly, their coverage of New Glenn was quite a bit better than the official stream. :P

I didn't watch the official stream from Blue Origin (watched that one from my phone in bed so no multistreams that time lol) but it wouldn't surprise me one bit.

Sure, you'll get better telemetry info and the onboard views from the ships that these companies launch in their streams, but the commentary is sub-par at best (they are always sounding so "corporate official" to me) and they just don't provide the best views for watching it live.

I love that these space flight companies have opened up their development process to let the public follow along, I just think they aren't as good at producing live streams as some of these channels that have taken off over the last 5+ years.