71–80 of 193 posts
https://archive.is/k459Q
It totally decided I was a robot. After my third "check all the boxes with..." I gave up.
Happens on my phone every time.
Altogether, it was a terrific flight and a big step forward for the Starship program. The biggest success was the survival of stage zero, which bodes well for a quick turnaround for the next flight. Hot staging was the second big success, and Starship got to space. The flight termination was disappointing, but the actual functioning of the FTS system seems to be fixed. That was a problem with the first flight and sho…
The second big success was all 33 engines working reliably all the way up! There were so many nay-sayers saying if the soviets could build those amazing engines but couldn't solve their flameout problem on their N-1 rocket that Superheavy was never going to work
Who are you talking to where many people are saying that? I work in the space industry and no one I've ever spoken to says that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably related to the tons of rocks and dirt thrown up during excavation of the surprise flame trench during the first test.
I think the only one who was surprised by that outcome was Elon.
They're testing and developing and learning. They're taking risks and making improvements as needed.
As the most successful rocket company of all time by a VERY large margin, I'm pretty sure they know a heck of a lot more about rockets than you and I do, I'm willing to let them make the expert decisions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't reentry supposed to be the hard part? How was this a success?
The largest rocket ever built just got to space for the first time. Even without re-entry this is a milestone. They have a production line to build these things. They’ll roll out the next one and try again. It’s not like SLS where everything is expected to work perfectly.
Yep. to be more specific, they have 6 more ships built and 5 under construction. Engines are being produced one per day. The scale of manufacturing is stupefying.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> SpaceX Loses Starship Spaceraft During Test Flight It's really a glass half empty headline, isn't it? It's like if someone got bronze at the Olympics and the headline were, "Athlete loses to multiple opponents, fails to get gold or silver medal."
I mean, second place is the first loser after all. The only thing left after bronze is participation trophies for all the athletes, because they all did try really hard.
"Loses" is kind of an incorrect way to talk about the launch. The flight made great progress and was just shy of orbital velocity (it was over 24,000 km/hr and orbital velocity is around 24,500 km/hr for a low orbit). Keep in mind that the goal of this launch wasn't to carry any payload. It was to get data and further iterative development. People here, especially, should understand how iterative development works.
I'm not really surprised at their choice of words, the mainstream narrative is that Elon is evil after all. Even here, the detractors are coming out of the woodwork to complain about success. At least we get to mine salt from their tears, I guess?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes in terms of thrust, it’s almost double the nearest competitor, the SLS. SLS generates 8.8M pounds while the Starship generates 16.7M pounds.
Wouldn't its nearest competitor be the N1 rocket? That thing did have some liftoffs.
Nothing else comes close, even planned ones that aren't operational yet.
I’m old enough to remember the Apollo program. Not one Saturn V blew up on launch. I guess we had a different notion of “success” back then.
I’m old enough to remember the Apollo program. Not one Saturn V blew up on launch. I guess we had a different notion of “success” back then.
Do you consider that a failure of the Saturn-V program? Or do you understand the value of testing prototype hardware to destruction?