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Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

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Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#921

Post by photochemsyn »

h2odragon wrote: post #177

My wife asked "Why is this a big deal?", so I gave her a link to Handmer's 2021 explanation: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/10/28/starship-is-st... She's not an enthusiast; she's got an impression from SciFi that going to mars shouldn't be that hard.

Going to Mars is relatively easy compared to setting up a self-sustaining human civilization on Mars, which will be thousands of times harder. Many people don't understand the scale and scope of the biosphere services the Earth provides to humans free of charge, though, and forget that little of that exists on Mars, other than gravity.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#922

Post by cryptonector »

pfdietz wrote: post #775
cryptonector wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Second stage reuse seems the far more challenging problem. Sure, SpaceX has been doing first stage reuse for a long time now. But they have demonstrated landing the second stage successfully at sea twice now with the same sort of smoothness that they demonstrated once for the booster before they then caught the booster on the first real try. A partial list of unbelievably hard things that SpaceX has so far made see…

The hard part of 2nd stage reuse is surviving entry at orbital speeds. They are close to having that solved.

I would say they are there. Sure, they're having some burn through on the flaps, but they managed to hit their virtual landing spot anyways, and if they caught a slightly damaged ship they could study that damage better, repair it, and refurbish the ship.

But I imagine that by IFT6 they'll have nailed the flap burn through problem.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#923

Post by abustamam »

This is truly an amazing feat! Congratulations to the SpaceX team.

Can someone explain to me exactly WHY it's such a big deal though? Like subjectively I can see it's incredible but while watching the video there were enormous applauses at points I knew were a big deal but I lacked the understanding of physics to truly appreciate.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#924

Post by cubefox »

mshockwave wrote: post #386
foobarian wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without the catch step, I always feel like their boosters are coming down way too fast way too late, with engines reigniting startlingly close to surface. Never ceases to surprise me.

I have the same feeling watching Starship when the telemetry on the bottom right of the screen showing “0km” but landing burn hasn’t started. Later did I know that it was meant to start the burn only a few hundreds _meters_ from the ground

It may also be that the video feed is delayed (e.g. due to compression) relative to the telemetry.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#926

Post by diamondfist25 »

bjamesking wrote: post #362

I was watching a youtube stream with tens of thousands of viewers and 20 seconds before launch it switched to an AI generated video of Elon on stage talking about his "crypto currency program". It was so well executed and generated, it nearly felt real. The violent anger I felt and still feel for scammers has ruined my day.

YT and Google has a vested interest to defame Elon.

It’s very clear — all the MSM are top of the list for anything Trump related, and for Elon it’s all crypto scam channels

It’s intentional folks

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#927

Post by chadhutchins10 »

abustamam wrote: post #923

This is truly an amazing feat! Congratulations to the SpaceX team. Can someone explain to me exactly WHY it's such a big deal though? Like subjectively I can see it's incredible but while watching the video there were enormous applauses at points I knew were a big deal but I lacked the understanding of physics to truly appreciate.

For humans to have any reasonable presence somewhere else in our solar system (moon, mars, etc.) we need the ability to launch tons (literally tons) of stuff to orbit and to the destination. and we need to launch it often to do anything in a reasonable amount of time. the only way to do that is to make reusable launch systems. SpaceX's Falcon 9 has aced that for satellites (see Starlink and everything else they've launched). The Starship launch system is capable of launching a significantly larger payload, ~20 times more. What they demonstrated yesterday is that a launch system that is capable of getting us anywhere in the solar system can be reusable. Huge accomplishment.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#928

Post by diamondfist25 »

thepasswordis wrote: post #42
Zealotux wrote: post #24

Uuuh the first stream on YouTube was Musk giving a speech, so I was waiting for the launch but turns out it was on another stream? So I just missed the whole thing, great.

Youtube has a terrible problem with scammers. I don't know why they don't do anything about this.

And yet all MSM channels are the first thing u see when u query certain topics and people.

It’s intentional

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#929

Post by cubefox »

creer wrote: post #686
creer wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually it convinces everybody that "quantity in space" is possible. Moving to projects where you don't have to count every ounce. It opens the path to wild schemes, in amount of weight that could be moved. And why "eventually"? SpaceX should have already convinced people of that. Yeah it's not yet in production, but the momentum and progress have been amazing to witness. (The previous one was convincing everyone…

An interesting question (because all the others will probably be too slow) is what does that change for SpaceX itself (which can be fast)? It gets to complete and upgrade Starlink. Sure. And that keeps it busy for what? Two years? At most. Sure. Done. Just kidding, that provides some background launches as a guaranteed customer going forward. But nowhere near enough to make a dent in what will be the new SpaceX launc…

> So what else? What can SpaceX do on its own with this launch capability?

Apart from Starlink, not much I believe. The main thing will be the Artemis contract with NASA, which requires two figures worth of Starship flights to LEO to refill the Starship tanker to get the HLS Starship to land a few people on the moon.

So I do think Starship will mostly generate money through NASA contracts, Starlink, and commercial launches. Though there aren't that many commercial launches currently. Perhaps there will be more once the launch prices drop due to reusability, though that remains to be seen. Developing a satellite is already more expensive than launching it.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#930

Post by cubefox »

slashdave wrote: post #543
msk-lywenn wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the goal is to refill and relaunch immediately?

This. You can lower the rocket back on the launch base, refill, and launch again within hours.

After checking if everything is okay with the vehicle. And of course the government agencies must determine that frequent sonic booms (there is one per booster landing) are acceptable for the public.
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