Earlier quoted context omitted.
Less gravity losses is another advantage, that's true. I think it'd be interesting to see a breakdown of that 10% improvement number. Hot staging in and of itself resulting in a 10% additional payload capacity seems large enough that I feel it's rather odd that it isn't more commonly used. I'm curious how much of it is due to "direct" improvements from reduced gravity losses and how much is due to "indirect" improvem…
Well, the old staging method tried in the last launch was to rotate the entire vehicle stack and "fling" the ship off. That obviously has a performance penalty in that you're not going to be pointing in the correct direction when you come off. I don't know if the 10% was compared to that or compared to a hypothetical "straight" staging with pushers, though.
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
#422- 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)
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The SpaceX flights are way more efficient and reproducible than the Apollo missions ever were. The only reason they aren't regularly going to the moon is that there isn't a strong incentive to do so.
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
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That’s easy. Give NASA 4-5% of the federal budget like it had in the 60s and we’ll go back in no time. This stuff is ridiculously expensive. It’s not the “how”, it’s the political “why” that doesn’t have an answer right now.
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Imagine explaining to the court that the passengers were blown up by your AI algorithm... Autonomous flight termination systems are not "AI". It uses an on-board GPS and INS to figure out where the rocket is. It applies a pre-defined set of rules to the state vector and if any one of the rules fail it terminates the flight. You can read more about them here: https://www.gps.gov/cgsic/meetings/2019/valencia.pdf
GOFAI is still AI in my books. *old man shouts at The Cloud*
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm very aware of why it initially broke up. But once that started, the range safety officer did activate the FTS system. The point is that rockets carrying crew do indeed have FTS systems - presence of a crew doesn't negate that need.
>the range safety officer did activate the FTS system. That doesn't sound very automatic.
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#426Earlier quoted context omitted.
They don't necessarily have to redesign the booster. The booster completed its primary mission of boosting successfully. It survived long enough that it seems reasonable to say that if they wouldn't have attempted boost back it would successfully coasted to a splash in the ocean. So the SuperHeavy booster can likely be used as is, if they're willing to spend an extra ~$50M per mission on not recover the booster.
Pretty sure NASA doesn't care about losing the booster for a moonshot mission. Shuttle was 1.6 billion per flight.
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, but in same way SpaceX has also been in the rocket business for over 20 years, and building upon know how and organizational expertise gained from the Falcon 9.
Wiki says Raptor development started in 2009-2012 with no predecessor, with first test firing in 2016.
"A wiki" is a type of software. But when you use "Wiki" as a proper noun, referring to one specific instance, that's the name of Ward's Wiki, the original wiki, also known as wikiwikiweb, available at wiki.c2.com .
I'm guessing that you were not citing Ward's Wiki, but were rather citing some other site, in particular the site that contains this advice on citing it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don%27t_abbreviate_%...!
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Wow, really displaying your ignorance here lol The SpaceX flights are way more efficient and reproducible than the Apollo missions ever were. The only reason they aren't regularly going to the moon is that there isn't a strong incentive to do so.
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
Naw, there was that cloud of dust I saw, but this was like a black falling object.
Interesting, did not catch that
I took some screenshots: https://ibb.co/1GvddL5 https://ibb.co/28BSxwG https://ibb.co/KmccttG
Could be a bird, but doesn't really look like it to me.
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I understand it, on crewed flights of the Falcon 9 the AFTS is somehow integrated with the abort system so that it is impossible for it to detonate without the capsule having a few seconds to get to safety first. I don't see how this would work for Starship, since it won't have an abort system.
Couldn’t Starship detach and fire its engines to get away from the booster? Of course I guess if they are not hypergolic there is startup time.