Really says something when manufacturing and space launch cycle times are faster than some software projects.
Starship Flight 7
401–410 of 772 posts
Re: Starship Flight 7
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I said, the debris was likely closer to around ~100km in altitude. Commercial airliners fly around ~10km in altitude. Appearing to be at a similar altitude as the plane and "in front" of it was an optical illusion because the debris was intensely bright, very far away, very high and moving several times faster than a bullet. While we don't have exact data yet, I believe it is highly likely there was zero chance of…
> the debris was likely closer to around ~100km in altitude. Commercial airliners fly around ~10km in altitude (Not wishing to ask the obvious, and depending on the size of the pieces) debris at 100km altitude pretty much always ends up being debris falling through 10km ... right?
Apparently quite a bit of debris made it to the ground -
> The locals here are pissed in Turks and Cacos. Huge dabris rained down everywhere
It's from the pilot at the reddit link above.
https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1i34dki/starship_...
Re: Starship Flight 7
#403Can someone tell me what's the point of all this? To export capitalism outside of solar system?
Survival of our species, for one. Never the mind short-sighted folks like yourselves clawing us back the entire way.
It's the opposite of the survival. When locust consumes everything around, it dies out.
Re: Starship Flight 7
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
What happens if it doesn't explode and they just lost control over it? I'm mostly curios of the risks at that altitude.
They have a bunch of explosives strapped on the rocket and can give a radio command to blow the ship up. It can even decide to explode itself if the readings go haywire. It is called the Flight Termination System and it is very common on non-manned flights now.
If that system fails, can the rocket be shot down in time?
Re: Starship Flight 7
#405Looks 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!
Excitement guaranteed
Re: Starship Flight 7
#406Every one of these are like right out of a sci-fi novel. It makes me truly excited for our future in a way little else out there does. Between this, AI (even in its current LLM form), and mounting evidence suggesting the entire solar system is teeming with at least microbial life, we are going to become an interplanetary species far sooner than many “skeptics” imagine. We are just one more lander / sample mission / w…
> It makes me truly excited for our future in a way little else out there does. Hate to break it to you, but Space X isn't it. You can't have a CEO that is not aligned to the truth and reality to lead a company into something that is beneficial for humanity.
Weyland-Yutani
Re: Starship Flight 7
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the debris was likely closer to around ~100km in altitude. Commercial airliners fly around ~10km in altitude (Not wishing to ask the obvious, and depending on the size of the pieces) debris at 100km altitude pretty much always ends up being debris falling through 10km ... right?
At the incredible speeds Starship was moving (>13,000 mph) by the time it was over the Caribbean, debris from a Starship is expected to burn up by the time it reaches the surface. But you said "depending on the size", so let's imagine it's a different spacecraft carrying something that won't entirely burn up, like the Mir space station from several years back. In that scenario, debris from 100km will survive to pass…
> so by the time it slows enough to get that low (10km) it's hundreds or thousands of miles East from where the explosion was seen
Appreciate that, the question would be, do we know that there won't be any aircraft at the right (wrong) altitude in that area(?!)
With aircraft regularly travelling thousands of miles, would be interesting to know whether route choices are made to avoid being "under"* the track of a rocket's launch?
There's apparently another video of the debris, this one appears to show very clearly that the debris is "going sideways"* rather than coming vertically down https://x.com/kristinafitzsi/status/1880032746032230515?s=61
* apologies for the poor phrasing :)
Re: Starship Flight 7
#408What worries me about space innovation is the fact that there is such little margin for error. Materials are being stressed so much while trying to defy the laws of physics that the smallest angle error, the smallest pressure mismatch, smallest timing error, and boom. This did not happen when we were inventing cars, trains and air planes. Now imagine these risks, while you're halfway to mars. Is it possible that we j…
What makes you think this didn't happen in other industries? See the first iteration of the de Havilland Comet for a great example.
The Space Industry to date has killed many fewer people than planes, trains, or automobiles.
Re: Starship Flight 7
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1880060983734858130
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Test flights.
My tests keep failing until I fix all of my code, then we deploy to production. If code fails in production than that's a problem.
We could say that rockets are not code. A test run of a Spaceship surely cost much more than a test run of any software on my laptop but tests are still tests. They are very likely to fail and there are things to learn from their failures.
Re: Starship Flight 7
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would be surprised if that was the case, my reasoning to that is that computing where a thing is going, when it's under going with changing acceleration AND changing mass, is pretty complicated. Especially if you already have the capability to throttle the engines and keep 'a' constant. They might, I'm not saying your wrong, I'm just saying that I cannot imagine how you would justify the added complexity of doing i…
Any extra time spent during a burn is wasted fuel. Intuitively, any time before the rocket is in orbit, some part of the rocket thrust is resisting the force of gravity or else it would fall back down to earth. The longer that time is, the more thrust (and thus fuel) was spent negating that force. It's the main reason why the Falcon 9 boosters do a 'hoverslam' on return and land at close to full throttle - any extra…
I thought the hoverslam was because the Merlin can't throttle down sufficiently to actually hover?