751–760 of 1001 posts
Apparently the rails that catch the booster can translate in and out relative to the "chopstick" arms so the booster can be positioned and rotated to match the launch mount after landing.
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Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct would have got "flags and footprints" on Mars without needing something like Starship. He worked on a version of SLS in 1989 in Martin Marietta that would have cost $1B and been ready in the second half of the 90s and would be retiring soon after many successful flight to Mars (and to the Moon), but instead we got SLS and Orion so we need Starship to get anything done.
The Mars Direct book is worth reading not only for things like transport and mission design but also a wealth of other good ideas about how to “live off the land” when we get there too. Truly worth reading for anyone remotely interested in space exploration
People on earth are experiencing the Jetsons and the Flinstones at the same time
This is what makes it bittersweet. So many comments here talking about this being progress for 'humanity'. I may be cynical, but most of humanity will get no benefit from any of these accomplishments. This is technology owned by and ultimately in service of a minuscule fraction of humanity.
so there’s something at least. :)
Pretty impressive. The engineering team at SpaceX is really something. Some thoughts; The 'chopsticks catch' was amazing to watch. Seems like it adds a lot of risk and clearly the booster needs additional fire suppression systems :-) perhaps the tower could mount something that sprays the booster like the barges have for the F9 boosters. The heatshield held out for a much longer time, the asymmetric heating on the fl…
>The 'chopsticks catch' was amazing to watch. Seems like it adds a lot of risk and clearly the booster needs additional fire suppression systems :-) perhaps the tower could mount something that sprays the booster like the barges have for the F9 boosters. There's no reason to reinvent the airport firetruck.
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Naive question: I obviously expect there to be flames from the engines, but there were flames on the lower sides for quite a while after the catch – is that expected?
It is common for Starship prototypes to have uncontrolled fires, but it is obviously not a good thing. For example, prototype number 10 exploded 8 minutes after landing [1] because of a seemingly insignificant fire at the bottom. After today's flight there was a long lasting fire in the engine section, with occasional flaming pieces of plumbing raining down from the rocket. Examining the aftermath should help SpaceX…
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They're talking here about Starship, not the booster.
How does this logically make sense? They said "it looks like the heat shield held out". Where was a heat shield holding out?
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>The 'chopsticks catch' was amazing to watch. Seems like it adds a lot of risk and clearly the booster needs additional fire suppression systems :-) perhaps the tower could mount something that sprays the booster like the barges have for the F9 boosters. There's no reason to reinvent the airport firetruck.
The airport fire truck can’t control fires 250ft in the air