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Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time

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Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time

#411

Post by unethical_ban »

wheelerof4te wrote: post #403
ironyman wrote: post #89

- Starship got just below orbit - Booster destroyed during hot staging - SpaceX reporting that destruct system fired on upper stage towards end of burn all in all a pretty good result: clean launch and separation, good performance on the booster during ascent (no engine mishaps this time)

[flagged]

Sibling comment made a good point about how the hot stuff in science 60-70 years ago was rocketry and physics where now so much "talent" is in "computer science".

Another thing: we are trying to do things a lot better than we did 60 years ago - fully reusable craft that, I assume, practically flies itself.

Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time

#412

Post by nradov »

candiddevmike wrote: post #379
dotancohen wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This same question was asked in the early years of commercial aviation. In the end, the industry (mostly) settled on aircraft designs that could passively glide reasonably well enough to land (sometimes). But some aircraft, e.g. military jets and Cirrus, came up with different answers (parachutes for the crew and for the whole aircraft, mostly). We'll see how the commercial spacecraft industry deals with this, but I…

Wonder if we'll ever have commercial aircrafts with whole aircraft parachutes.

No. Those systems can't really scale up in size and speed. And it would be pointless anyway because the few commercial airliner crashes that do occur are mostly during take off or landing where parachutes aren't very effective.

Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time

#413

Post by agrajag »

wheelerof4te wrote: post #403
ironyman wrote: post #89

- Starship got just below orbit - Booster destroyed during hot staging - SpaceX reporting that destruct system fired on upper stage towards end of burn all in all a pretty good result: clean launch and separation, good performance on the booster during ascent (no engine mishaps this time)

[flagged]

Apollo missions were done at incredible expense, and didn’t provide any longevity.

We’ve had humans in orbit on the ISS continuously for decades, sent probes to the edge of the solar system, landed multiple robots on Mars, and revolutionized our understanding of space and physics with space telescopes.

The biggest obstacle to space exploration was a contracting that didn’t bring down costs, and the thing that makes space so exciting now is high cadence low cost launches

Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time

#414

Post by GolfPopper »

wheelerof4te wrote: post #403
ironyman wrote: post #89

- Starship got just below orbit - Booster destroyed during hot staging - SpaceX reporting that destruct system fired on upper stage towards end of burn all in all a pretty good result: clean launch and separation, good performance on the booster during ascent (no engine mishaps this time)

[flagged]

We spent the better part of 50 years pouring most of our launch funding (which was reduced compared to the Apollo years) into the Space Shuttle program, which was never as efficient as hoped. (In part because it is a jobs and corporate welfare program as well as a space program.)

Hell, aside from SpaceX and a few similar efforts, we're still pouring most of our launch funding into the Space Shuttle Program, via it's SLS successor - currently over $11 billion spent on a program that has had, to date, one launch.

Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time

#416

Post by wheelerof4te »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #406
wheelerof4te wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

SpaceX can reliably deliver payloads to orbit at much cheaper prices than anything before. The Moon program had its share of disasters, near-disasters and other failures (Apollo 1 burned with all its crew on the ground). Starship is a vehicle in development and will obviously have all sorts of bugs and edge cases to be worked out.

[flagged]

Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time

#417

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

theolivenbaum wrote: post #392
candiddevmike wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder if we'll ever have commercial aircrafts with whole aircraft parachutes.

There's no parachuting from 900km/h

There's been a number of successful supersonic ejections of military pilots over the years. It's extremely dangerous and very likely to fail, but it's better than the alternative. The basic idea is a drogue chute stabilizes and slows the pilot.

Whether the same idea could be adapted to a whole plane I don't know, but I would be skeptical of just on the basis that you probably wouldn't trigger such a thing unless the plane has had a substantial failure such that it could overpower any drogue chute.

Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time

#418

Post by jwells89 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #343
x86x87 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about laughing or not. This is about if it was objectfully a successful test or not. If you want to take the stance that any test is a success that's fine but remember this depends on what your definition of success is. The other thing to keep in mind is that past success is not always a good predictor of future success.

There's no "objectively" here. It's all feels. Objectively , this test successfully demonstrated the water deluge system, an intact launch pad, all engines on the first and second stage igniting and staying lit, stage separation, hot staging, and a long burn nearly to orbital speeds. That's a pretty good list of ticked boxes. They very openly stated they didn't necessarily expect it to get all the way to splashdown.…

And on top of all of that, there’s a laundry list of firsts that are being achieved here: first flightworthy full-flow staged combustion engine, largest vehicle launched, largest number of engines working in concert, first vehicle built with full reusability factored into its design from day one.

Every launch where more is nominal for longer is new territory and an achievement.

Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time

#419

Post by fnord77 »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #402
pantalaimon wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did Space Shuttle approach this problem?

They added this system after Challenger, seems extremely limited. https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/crew-escape-sy...

"The crew escape system was intended for emergency bailout use only when the orbiter was in controlled gliding flight and unable to reach a runway. "

I'd take my chances and stay with the orbiter

Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time

#420

Post by serf »

theolivenbaum wrote: post #392
candiddevmike wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder if we'll ever have commercial aircrafts with whole aircraft parachutes.

There's no parachuting from 900km/h

i'd be willing to believe it's an economics thing more-so than a physics thing.

one could envisage a '747-like' sized plane with many passenger escape-pods similar to the pod from an B-58 Hustler -- but who would pay the astronomic cost for such a ticket?

and similar to what the other person in this thread mentioned : those escape pods won't help during takeoff/landing phases.

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