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Why is it hard to reconcile that he’s both extremely intelligent/driven, and believes free speech is critical to democracy and at risk?
Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
951–960 of 1001 posts
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#952I think that catching a grain silo in mid air that fell in a semi-controlled way from effin low earth orbit is undeniably incredible.
SpaceX continues to blow me away with these unbelievably lofty ideas. I remember seeing their "grasshopper" flights years ago and they blew it up because they couldn't land it at the time, who knew within a few years they'd be doing this.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#953Awesome achievement. Watched it with my sister at home and brought back memories from the 60s in front of the B&W TV watching some of the early amazing flights and landings. Question for hackers: How does this reorient space programs world-wide? If I were a politician or technocrat in China, Russia, or the EU this would feel like an inverse and intense Sputnik moment — “holy sh—- we have to up our game!”
In Europe, ESA has been pretty open about trying to copy and play catch-up to SpaceX:
> Q: Callisto looks very much like Grasshopper, the SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage reuse prototype.
> A: Callisto is Grasshopper. The Chinese are also building a similar prototype, I have no problem saying we didn’t invent anything.
https://satelliteobservation.net/2018/06/02/cnes-director-of...
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#954Earlier quoted context omitted.
The booster actually does have heat shielding behind the engine bells, to protect against aerodynamic heating on the return. In some of today's footage you can see it glowing yellow. However, Raptor 3 is supposed to obviate the need for this shielding.
Where did it glow yellow? What time in the video? The booster doesn’t travel fast enough to need heat shielding ever. It makes zero sense to use heat shielding behind the engine bells. Why? Think about it. If the booster renters the atmosphere engine bells first the engine bells would burn up BEFORE the air even touches the heat shield. If there are actually tiles there it’s just there to protect the booster from the…
> Where did it glow yellow? What time in the video?
This is a better view than the sibling comment linked. It's a greater close-up and you can clearly see the yellow glow behind the engine bells. This view is from Cosmic Perspective, a partner of Everyday Astronaut, whose video is linked:
https://www.youtube.com/live/pIKI7y3DTXk?si=LI4-xQ7UhnvITTiG...
In case you get confused due to lack of context, the booster shot is a replay. When Tim goes to split-screen view, the right-side image is a live view of the second stage ("Starship") as it re-enters from orbital speed. It is not a different angle on the booster that is shown on the left.
Later commentary explains that the heating behind the engine bells is due to atmospheric compression and SpaceX specifically orients the drop of the booster to focus heating in this spot.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#955Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well that may still continue to happen. The wonderful and competent state of California is literally trying to block SpaceX launches over Musk’s constitutionally protected political speech: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/10/california-reject-m... I cannot remember a more explicit case of authoritarian government abuse in a developed nation in recent memory, and it’s especially infuriating given SpaceX and Musk…
I don’t understand how this is a constitutional violation like you claim. Let’s pretend he posted something absurd on Twitter for arguments sake, like “I’m going to use my rockets to kill every endangered bird on every California beach”, do you think that should not be considered when evaluating the request for more launches?
Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press; or the right of the
people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the government for a redress
of grievances.
Therefore, for a California state government agency to punish SpaceX for its founder's speech is unconstitutional.
Title 18 USC section 232 lays out criminal penalties for violating a citizens civil rights, thus unconstitutional acts can be and often are criminal acts.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#956Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like it adds a lot of risk I'm actually wondering about that. If I understand correctly, the arms can move up and down, and pivot around the tower. This allows them to correct for some error in the rocket trajectory and also (presumably) "soften" the final contact. Between the nozzles and the arms, it gives SpaceX a lot of degrees of freedom in the final seconds (you can see how the booster kind of "hovered" ri…
Yes, we should probably assume that the SpaceX engineers have considered all of the risks HN readers are able to come up with in a few hours. And that they have evaluated alternatives like the added weight etc of having foldable legs on the booster. The catchzilla solution is an example of their amazing ability to think out of the box. This solution, and things like the rapid evolution of the Raptor engine (see pictu…
But did they consider a giant spider web?
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#957This was insanely cool to watch. And on the first try! As a complete lay person with little to no physics knowledge: what stops the use of something dumb like a parachute, or even wings and landing gear, to "land" the booster? I assume it is impractical (since they don't do it), but what are the actual particulars that stop it from working? While super cool to watch, it seems crazy that plucking it out of the air lik…
At the very least, reducing the number of concerns on the rocket is definitely worthwhile. They are going to have an engine in any case, and using just that and nothing else on the rocket itself simplifies testing and reduces risk. The tower can have a separate testing and there's no way something that happens on the way to orbit and back breaks the tower. Wings, parachute, etc... All very easy to break or burn at hy…
The Starship second stage is surprisingly not all that heavy compared to the 78t Shuttle orbiter dry mass, despite the many-fold difference in volume and payload, plus Starship needing to be a legitimate second stage rather than just an orbiter.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#958Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone gets this wrong, cost is not price. SpaceX themselves launch Starlinks at about $1,200/kg but they charge customers closer to $12,000/kg. Do the math. Costs coming down are increases in SpaceX profits, not decreases in customer prices.
Besides what 55555 said, in the near term SpaceX has indeed passed at least some of the cost savings onto customers. NASA administrator Bill Nelson quoted a member of the Joint Chiefs as telling him that SpaceX had saved the US government $40 billion for just launching military payloads. https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/06/05/did-spacex-really-... > On the civilian side, SpaceX saved NASA $2 billion for just one p…
If only the military budget went down by 40b in response to these new cost savings.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#959Earlier quoted context omitted.
Massive. The designers of Starship studiously avoided all the problems that made Space Shuttle expensive to refurbish: a. Cheaper, more durable material (stainless steel). b. Cheaper, easier to manufacture engines. c. Easier to use fuel (methane is much "tamer" than hydrogen). d. Standardized heat shield with much smaller requirements for manual work.
> d. Standardized heat shield with much smaller requirements for manual work. We'll have to see how it works out.
The way they are going they can try 5 different ones that fail until they find one that doesn't.
Contrast that to the Space Shuttle which required a human crew to flight test anything.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#960Update: SpaceX has set the booster back down on the launch mount and reconnected the "quick disconnect" hoses that fill it with propellant before launch. If they refilled it with propellant they'd be close to launching it again! Presumably they will be draining it instead. 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…
This is a very important update. Where would we find out more about this? Was this in a YouTube video somewhere?