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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

#431

Post by FeepingCreature »

jholman wrote: post #427
FeepingCreature wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wiki says Raptor development started in 2009-2012 with no predecessor, with first test firing in 2016.

Since this is a thread about pedantry (rocketry pedantry), I'll allow myself to be pedantic about words. "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 partic…

While we're at pedantry, English is a descriptivist language... I guarantee you that when I say "the wiki", approximately nobody thinks of Ward's.

(Yes, I think Wikipedia's Don't Abbreviate... page is just wrong about this.)

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

#432

Post by codebolt »

kranke155 wrote: post #409
codebolt wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This generation has too many computer scientists, not enough physicists (and the few physicists remaining are all focused on woo woo).

Why would you need a new generation of physicist to get a rocket on the moon at this point. The physics of doing so are well established. You need a reason and money to fund it. Which Musk supplied.

Even if the physics is well established, I believe you need people who have spent their 10,000 hours learning and practicing with it in order to make the best use of it.

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

#433

Post by endymi0n »

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 is at least one documented survival at the insane speed of Mach 3: https://theaviationgeekclub.com/bailing-out-at-mach-3-the-in...

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

#434

Post by wheelerof4te »

kranke155 wrote: post #407
wheelerof4te wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Are you really suggesting what I think you're suggesting? Pretty sure we can land things on the moon if we needed to. We just placed the James Webb Telescope there. We just don't have the political will or necessity. Ho long was it between the first trip to the South Pole and the first permanent base? 1911 to 1944. And that was on Earth, where supplying that base is much easier than the humongous expenditure it was t…

[flagged]

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

#435

Post by fragmede »

x86x87 wrote: post #350
fragmede wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know when they're using an app on their phone while driving though? Because safety is the crux of the issue, and human drivers are notoriously terrible at driving. Having lost a friend on the first of the year to a driver who didn't stop, human drivers are drunk, distracted, and falling asleep at the wheel. They're not in "beta" only because they're not computer programs. That doesn't mean they're not absolute…

Sorry but it's just not the same thing. If you, as a human, do stupid things behind the wheel you are personally liable for the outcome. Human drivers are orders of magnitude more capable AND liable than this autopilot joke. If a machine advertised as SELF DRIVING does stupid things behind the wheel who do you hold accountable? Should this even be allowed when we know that the machine cannot handle all situations?

as a pedestrian, I don't care who's liable, I'm still broken from being run over.

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

#436

Post by kbenson »

oceanplexian wrote: post #423
lovecg wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Elon Musk doesn’t have 4-5% of the federal budget and SpaceX is well on their way to doing it. I agree with the parent, there’s something else going on, either with society, or our government.

SpaceX is well in their way to doing it, but 50+ years later, relying on advances in material sciences and production capabilities to reduce the cost. None of this seems fishy to me. As a nation we decided to do something, damn the cost, and when we decided that was no longer important to do, it took decades of advances before advances brought the cost down to the realm that corporations could begin to attempt to do the same.

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

#437

Post by kbenson »

cratermoon wrote: post #384
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)

I previously said that if the launch works through staging, SpaceX fans would declare it a success. Personally, that seems like a pretty low bar compared to things like Saturn V and even STS, both of which launched successfully to orbit the first time.

What you count as success depends on what your goal is. It's entirely possibly SpaceX could have thrown extra billions at it and had a higher chance of successful orbit, but that doesn't mean they deemed that the most efficient use of time and money to advance the project. Sometimes it's far less costly in time and effort to start it up and see where it fails rather than look it over another 20 times and wrack your brain for anything you've missed before.

When I think I've gotten pretty far in a program I'm writing and there's even a small chance of it partially functioning, I'll often fire it up to get feedback on the errors I wasn't aware of as early as possible. Some of those may indicate larger structural changes that are required in the worst case, and the earlier I can learn about those the better.

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

#438

Post by wheelerof4te »

ByThyGrace wrote: post #227
cdash wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just want to add another comment in here that there is no manual termination, they are using a fully automatic flight termination system.

Surely the final Starship carrying passengers will not have auto flight termination?

No. If thing go south, they'd just suicide themselves manually.

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

#439

Post by lisper »

pantalaimon wrote: post #371
kortex wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching the replay, it looks like some of the engines failed to light during boostback reignition. Then, either total flameout occurred, or AFTS started cutting fuel in preparation for termination (maybe there are settings for "terminate right tf now" and "try to shut down engines before popping off", idk just speculating). Either way, it looks like the start of boostback was not quite norminal, and AFTS decided tha…

All but one engine successfully relit (the outer engine ring has no re-light capability) but they started to fail quickly afterwards. Scott Manley also has the theory that the maneuver caused a sloshing motion of the fuel and the water hammer ruptured piping on the engines, causing a cascading failure. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7LYw6gU65ac

I love how at the end of the video the SpaceX announcer refers to what just happened as a "rapid unscheduled disassembly of the booster".
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