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Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

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Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#711

Post by proaralyst »

tocs3 wrote: post #237
mhandley wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that it managed the flip and landing burn means the fuel tanks (i.e. most of the fuselage) must have suffered no burn-through, despite what happened to the front flap. They've obviously got some redesign needed on the thermal protection around the flap hinges, but broadly, the thermal protection system and aerodynamic control during reentry seem to have worked well enough. It's finally starting to feel like…

One of the NSF commentators commented the fuel for the landing burn comes from the header tanks (little extra tanks for this kind of thing). Still, I would think if one of the closed up sections had a hole that it would cause all sorts of other troubles.

The strength of the body of the rocket comes from some level of pressurisation – much like a drinks can. I suspect that if the tank got holed the ship wouldn't have held up during the flip

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#712

Post by proaralyst »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #625
panick21_ wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean of course Mars colonization is crazy. Being skeptical is reasonable, even Musk himself is skeptical and gives it a low chance of success. But we know for sure we will not get there if we don't try. That the ship in principle is capable of landing on Mars doesn't seem that crazy. They are designing with that in mind from the beginning. Again, that's difficult but very possible with current technology. The more…

I still think: Starship Moon Base Orion Pulse Nuclear ships launched from the Moon Mars Base Is the winning formula, because the Orion payloads are so huge and the transit time so greatly reduced.

I strongly suspect the chances of Orion-style propulsion happening are close to zero. I think we're much more likely to see fission engines (where the heat from a conventional fission reactor is used to superheat water, which then goes through a conventional nozzle), or something a little more exotic like pulsed fusion (where little capsules of lithium containing deuterium go through a magnetic pinch and fuse, again in a more-or-less conventional nozzle) are more likely. They also have very high ISP but with much lower abuse risks (can you see any government agreeing to have a giant stockpile of nukes in space?)

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#713

Post by kemotep »

panick21_ wrote: post #563
kemotep wrote: post #36

I am one of the people skeptical about Elon’s specific claims of Starships abilities specifically about his Mars ambitions. Today’s test, if the Starship reentry is as successful as the booster soft landing will be absolutely a great achievement and a 100% mission success. This demonstration keeps SpaceX on schedule for their part of the Artemis 3 mission. Keeping the mission parameters simpler (no “refueuling” or do…

I mean of course Mars colonization is crazy. Being skeptical is reasonable, even Musk himself is skeptical and gives it a low chance of success. But we know for sure we will not get there if we don't try. That the ship in principle is capable of landing on Mars doesn't seem that crazy. They are designing with that in mind from the beginning. Again, that's difficult but very possible with current technology. The more…

Musk held an event earlier this year where he outlined how SpaceX was going to get 1 million people to Mars by the 2050’s. That’s not really being skeptical. The plan he outlined is so ambitious that it is entirely unrealistic to the point of being almost straight fantasy.

The number of Starships needing to be built, the amount of launches necessary to send that many people, and other details don’t line up.

I am not skeptical that SpaceX could do a mission to Mars by the 2050’s, sending a small team to explore the planet and come back. I am skeptical of SpaceX being able to launch hundreds Starships loaded with a hundreds of people and everything they need for building a self sufficient colony, by 2026.

The plan Musk outlined has SpaceX sending people to Mars at the same time they send people to the Moon.

Here is a link to the presentation: https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1776669097490776563

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#714

Post by [deleted] »

raverbashing wrote: post #707
vl wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is even more impressive to me is that they were able to quite reliably stream all this through Starlink. This shows how mature and usable Starlink is. The fact that you can have live internet connection on re-entering space ship - truly the future is here.

Well, yeah it was reliable but with a lot of artifacts I honestly couldn't make out much of what was being shown at those last moments. And I'm curious why SpaceX didn't have a ship there at the expected landing site to assess the landing (maybe they thought it wouldn't make it)? It was a great event, surely, but it would have been nice to have a 3rd person view of the landing (you have the diagram at the bottom but…

[deleted]

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#715

Post by krisoft »

tim333 wrote: post #706
m463 wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say... who took the picture but nowadays it can be a drone.

I was pondering but given the guys in the picture are on cherry picker type cranes, I'm guessing the photographer was on another of those. The quality looks a bit high for a drone.

> The quality looks a bit high for a drone.

There are drones which carry full DSLR cameras or even cinematography film cameras. I don't think you will be able to tell if the camera was hoisted by a crane or a drone based on image quality.

> given the guys in the picture are on cherry picker type cranes, I'm guessing the photographer was on another of those

I don't think so! That picture appears to be the fitment check of SN20 with B4 on 06th of August 2021.

I believe this picture shows the same scene from a different viewpoint: https://starship-spacex.fandom.com/wiki/SN20/Ship_20?file=E8...

As you can see the stack is standing next to the integration tower. If I were to hazard a guess most likely the photographer was on the tower. One could attempt to verify this by matching the terrain in the background with the view one would expect from the integration tower.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#716

Post by simonh »

zarzavat wrote: post #692
DylanSp wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FAA's license authorization for this flight mentioned that they wouldn't require a full mishap investigation unless someone got hurt, property got damaged, or debris fell outside the designated areas, so the turnaround for approving the next flight should be pretty quick. https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/1798089390708687106 has the full text.

This says failure of Raptor during landing is excepted from investigation, doesn’t that imply that FAA will have to investigate the failure of Raptor during launch?

I think that makes sense. Failures on launch are potentially a risk to the surrounding area, whereas you're dropping massive chunks of metal on the target areas for touchdown anyway. What shape, size or how many pieces of metal at that end doesn't materially change the risk profile.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#717

Post by cwillu »

me_me_me wrote: post #604
panick21_ wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe next time you could do some research before making a bunch of claims. > The one way trip to mars is orders of magnitude more complicated than moon. From an energy perspective its not that much more complex. And from a living perspective, yes it is an order of magnitude, but guess what, the ship is also an order of magnitude bigger. Meaning that for a small crew you have enough space for training rooms, labs, li…

I am reading this and I can't believe it. Was this written by chatgtp? > From an energy perspective its not that much more complex. As in what exactly? Its not much more complex because you have to 'burn to moon' and 'burn to mars' which is pretty much the same because you need energy to do both?? Here, have a look at required deltaV. https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1ktjfi/deltav_map_of... how is this 'From a…

> Here, have a look at required deltaV. https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1ktjfi/deltav_map_of... > how is this 'From an energy perspective its not that much more complex.'?

According to that chart:

Moon landing ∆V: 9.4+2.44+0.68+0.14+0.68+1.73 = 15.1 km/s

Mars landing ∆V: 9.4+2.44+0.68+0.09+0.39+0.67+.034+0.40+0.70+3.8 = 18.6 km/s

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#718

Post by Aeolun »

tim333 wrote: post #371
somenameforme wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'worst' thing about watching space launches on streams is that you simply cannot grasp how ridiculously huge these things are. Even if, like in the stream today, you see a water tower for some scale, the size discrepancies just make it so hard to intuit. Starship is 121 meters high. That's something taller than a football field, jetting off into space! I've only gotten to see a decommissioned Space Shuttle in per…

I've got the black and white arty photo as my lockscreen which gives you an idea https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/E46BxzjjUkpthVBNE6k8mn-192...

You could not pay me enough to stand there…

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#719

Post by stoobs »

parasense wrote: post #639
vl wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is even more impressive to me is that they were able to quite reliably stream all this through Starlink. This shows how mature and usable Starlink is. The fact that you can have live internet connection on re-entering space ship - truly the future is here.

Not to down play StarLink, but actually... this amazing impressive reliable video stream is capable from any orbiting satelite. What's different here is that Starship is so massively huge, something like several meters in diameter, like maybe 7~9 meters, or something like that. Anyhoo, that the interference from the plasma envelope... does not fully envelope the whole rocket. There is a bunch of surface on the backsi…

Yes, a ship that big makes a big hole that physically allows the signals to escape the plasma envelope, but beyond that, it has to have a coherent signal with enough bandwidth for us to watch the video in high definition in near realtime, whilst thundering through the atmosphere at 20,000kph at the same time parts of the ship are being torn apart from the stresses of re-entry, which I find is astonishing.

I very much doubt that the same bandwidth and signal reliability is currently available from just "any orbiting satellite" outside of some military constellations.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#720

Post by Aeolun »

tialaramex wrote: post #219
SoftTalker wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German V1 or V2, presumably.

Only the V2 is a rocket, the V1 is a flying bomb. They're both terror weapons, as actual products they have no direct military value, they exist solely in order to scare the shit out of enemy civilians, but liquid fuelled rockets are an invention with a whole lot of interesting practical applications - the V1 is just a bad idea (unless you have unlimited resources, which the Germans did not, and your goal is to terri…

> your goal is to terrify enemy civilians, which is not a legitimate military strategy

This seems like a perfectly legitimate military strategy? It’s a strategy which the allies used to great effect in Germany and Japan :/

The Germans used rockets instead of bombers because they couldn’t, not because they didn’t want to.

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