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SpaceX closing in on first Starship Super Heavy launch
- neals 3y agoI like that we live in a time where real world photo's are like 3d renders for science fiction novel covers.
- throwthrowuknow 3y agoGood thing we have AI art to generate even more outlandish images for books or we’d be in trouble.
- jylam 3y agoAnd 3d renders look like read world photos. Can't trust anything anymore \o/
- mska 3y agoA rocket size comparison video [1] [1] https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1602270207287902209 https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1602270207287902209
- neals 3y agoTwo big take-aways from this video: - Half the size of the statue of liberty is it's base. Not that tall as a statue. - Seadragon, of which I'd never heard. 1) 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket)
- heliumcraft 3y agoFor All Mankind scene featuring this rocket :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6YJ5oIcT4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6YJ5oIcT4g
- phpisthebest 3y agoI think it is highly unfair to compare concepts to actual built rockets, might as well just include the Enterprise from Star Trek as well at that point.
- dylan604 3y agosure, why not? i'd be willing to bet that most people don't truly appreciate the size of the Enterprise
- neals 3y agoWhy? How big is the enterprise?
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago> How big is the Enterprise from Star Trek Well, the Enterprise from Star Trek is fiction, so legitimate answers would include "zero actual size" and "as big as they say it is". A true fan would probably reply: "Which one?" An enlightened person might point out that Star Trek fans are very online, all this info and much much more than you wanted to know is just a google away. 640m / 2000 feet, or thereabouts, is also an acceptable answer. But the unbuilt rockets in that animation were somewhat legitimate designs, a few steps from actual working prototypes; therefor those sizes had to be somewhat buildable; whereas the Starship Enterprise is FTL fiction, with warp drives powered by antimatter handwavium.
- darknavi 3y agoI love Sea Dragon so much. I'm so glad For All Man Kind included it.
- rootusrootus 3y agoThat's really cool! A nice reminder of just how enormous the Saturn V was, 60 years ago.
- gvb 3y agoThe twitter post simply links to a Facebook video which is a link to a YouTube video (Red Side). Use the source, Luke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DHNp7aEviE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DHNp7aEviE
- njarboe 3y agoCool video but it sure would be nice to have the dates when the rockets launched (if they did) and if they have not yet launched. For example Sea Dragon was a 1962 study design; never built. If they are going to have that one they should do the Orion Design (the first one with the nukes).
- macintux 3y agoTim Dodd posted a video on how to watch the launch in person. https://youtu.be/aWvHrih-Juk https://youtu.be/aWvHrih-Juk
- s1artibartfast 3y agoPress releases from SpaceX have alluded to a possible launch date of 420, which I think would be hilariously on brand.
- nicce 3y agoThat would be a date only in America, however…
- simiones 3y agoEdit: please disregard, the California senate bill seems to actually be a reference to the number's existing use. Given that it's a reference to a specific California prop, I don't think this is a problem in any way.
- olliecornelia 3y agoHow fucking lame, especially for a company that drug tests.
- bumby 3y agoI assuming they drug test because it's a requirement for govt contracts. Given that they get something like 98% of their funding from the govt, they can't exactly flippantly violate their best customers rules.
- cookingrobot 3y agoWhat could prevent them from getting a launch license? What’s the FAA considering in approving or denying a request like this?
- Casteil 3y agoEssentially, environmental/safety checklists... but it seems unlikely they'll get browbeaten because they're pretty critical to US space superiority.
- justrealist 3y agoNever assume that the wheels of the US federal bureaucracy are moving in sync.
- panick21_ 3y agoThe main criteria is if SpaceX can grantee margin of safety in regards to humans. Can they grantee that even in the worst case the rocket isn't gone fly into a town. In this case this is specially hard because the core booster flies back towards the coast.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoDo you have any information on the recovery plans for the booster and ship 24? I have been curious about this and not seen much disclosure on the topic. Would ship 24 also be the largest re-entry vehicle, and largest re-entry vehicle to make ocean landing? Edit: I was able to find some more information on the splashdown: >During this time, the spacecraft will hurtle sideways, generating tremendous heat before adjusting to an upright position for a "soft " rocket-powered ocean landing 62 miles north of Kauai. It will sink in the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility, according to plans for the historic flight, and join dozens of warships that have gone down over past decades during Navy "sink exercises " in waters 15, 000 feet deep. https://weatherboy.com/spacex-plans-to-launch-starship-rocket-to-hawaii-from-texas-marine-warnings-issued/ https://weatherboy.com/spacex-plans-to-launch-starship-rocke... https://www.govtech.com/products/orbital-spacex-starship-to-splash-down-sink-near-hawaii https://www.govtech.com/products/orbital-spacex-starship-to-...
- xoa 3y agoWhether or not they hit April specifically (some of which isn't under their control, freak weather or the like can happen) they've clearly been checking through prep at an impressive, disciplined pace and it'll be soon. And importantly once they start they've set things up to keep the iteration going and do more and more ironing things out, and then going into full production. All technical merits aside, that, mass production and cadence, will itself be amazing vs previous efforts. The first launch will simultaneously be incredibly exciting and meaningful, and yet also meaningful in that it won't be that meaningful if that makes any sense. If it operates perfectly beyond expectations great, if it blows up at Max-Q that'd still give them a fair amount and they can quickly try again. Not a multi-billion white elephant that we might only ever see a handful of launch in history, but something aimed to ultimately be as unremarkable and reliable as a commericial airline. I'm a bit too young for Apollo, so it feels incredibly fortunate to be able to watch the next great step forward for humanity. Starship is both the first true economics focused rocket to production and after F9 the end of the beginning of a shift in mindset for space. The ripple effects of the disruption will be fascinating and exciting as well. And we'll get to watch if live, in beautiful detail.
- kitsunesoba 3y agoYeah regardless of the outcome the real significance here is the SpaceX getting into an orbital launch test cadence, which with some luck should speed up after the first few once the various kinks in preparation and the bureaucratic half of the equation get smoothed out and it all becomes routine.
- elif 3y agoTrue. When the Artemis test launches were being scrubbed it really felt like an all-or-nothing moment. Even thought it was a rocket designed to be a disposable test article, it felt like failure would have necessitated a review of the whole program. With the upcoming starship test, it feels like even if it ends up being a 100 meter firework, the engine is still purring.
- mlsu 3y agoGwynne Shotwell has said that SpaceX is a rocket factory company, not a rocket company. I agree entirely, the possibilities here make me so excited.
- elif 3y agoI saw on their YouTube channel that they are tentatively targeting 4/20 to light it up :)
- detritus 3y agoughft. I mean: I smoke hashish, but honestly, Musk's adolescent little references like these are really trite and demeaning to the magnitude of what his companies are hoping to achieve. S3XY, poop emoji and 'Titter'. ughft, just stop already.
- elif 3y agoi don't smoke weed anymore, but it brings me true joy to know that people are so serious that mild harmless fun can bother them.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sgtnoodle 3y agoIt's certainly dumb, but what's the harm with being a little irreverent and having fun while you're doing good, impactful work?
- detritus 3y agoIf you knew me irl, you'd know I'm very much in favour of humour and irreverency, especially where it might not be expected or even appropriate – but I'm not that much younger than Musk and honestly, I just find his particular flavour of humour childish and cringe-inducing. 13-year old me would've been gleefully receptive to it – the not-far off 50-year old me... somewhat less so. The trouble for him here is – I'm not sure who amongst his consumer base would find it amusing. - ed Also: I, like everyone else, saw that clip of him 'smoking' pot on Joe Rogan's thing. Unlike Clinton, he really didn't inhale... . NASA had nothing to worry about there.
- 127 3y agoNot my favorite Star Trek show, but this song very appropriate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmQsrXLofMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmQsrXLofMY
- bane 3y agoIf they can pull this off I think we may enter an age with a clear "Before super heavy reusable launch" and "after". It's mind boggling how much stuff a Starship will be able to chuck into space and come down and then do it again and again. Consider this, the military is starting to explore the idea of moving heavy military equipment anywhere in the world within 90 minutes using this kind of capability. International Space Station sized habitats are a handful of launches over months, not dozens over decades. A single Starship launch could place multiple hubble-sized space observatories up in a single launch.
- bumby 3y ago>Consider this, the military is starting to explore the idea of moving heavy military equipment anywhere in the world within 90 minutes How reliable would this really be in practice? I'm thinking of all the times a projected launch has to get scrubbed and rescheduled days later. Not exactly the type of delivery uncertainty you'd want for critical equipment.
- AustinDev 3y agoWhat if you have that equipment in a Starship already in orbit?
- bumby 3y agoThat's a good point. I would imagine that might violate some of the international laws about militarizing space, but I don't know. Edit: it looks like conventional weapons are not banned by treaties. But I suspect that would make Starship an easy target as well.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> What if you have that equipment in a Starship already in orbit? Way cheaper to have redundant assets at multiple sites on the ground.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 3y ago
- stevespang 3y ago[dead]
- rqtwteye 3y agoI get pretty sad when I see this and then SLS. So much money and energy wasted on the SLS. I wonder how the NASA guys feel who are working on the SLS.
- avmich 3y agoSLS gave tons of experience, of all kinds imaginable. Like, supercomputers used to calculate aerodynamics, heat-protecting tiles, landing and pacifying procedures, to name some less known. It was definitely not money wasted, even though more than 14 people gave their lives to the program.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> was definitely not money wasted Sorry, it was absolutely wasted. We could have predictably achieved those benefits for less and quicker, with tens of billions to spare.
- alfiopuglisi 3y agoMaybe avmich is thinking of the STS (the Space Shuttle)
- mlindner 3y agoExcept nothing in SLS was strictly new. The engines are literally re-used, the solid rocket boosters are not new and are 5 segment versions of the boosters used on Shuttle, the tank design is a load-bearing version of the Shuttle. It's all 70s/80s tech at best. There's nothing new in using supercomputers to compute aerodynamics. It's been done for decades with ever further precision. SpaceX has even done talks that can be found on youtube on it themselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYA0f6R5KAI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYA0f6R5KAI The heat protection technology is literally the exact same material as used on Apollo, except re-formed into tiles, something SpaceX has been doing with their own heat shielding technology for decades. The landing/pacifying procedures are variants of Shuttle procedures as the same propellants are used (which are also very old). They're even the same engines and fuel used on Apollo and the Shuttle. (Also, I do not describe "happened to die during period of employment" as people "giving their lives for the program". That's just extreme propaganda.) So what experience was gained that was not in the form of "re-learning things that were forgotten"?
- mncharity 3y agoThere's drone video for those photos.[1] [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1643873905113722880 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1643873905113722880
- ttobbaybbob 3y agoif this works out does there become a bottleneck in the world's ability to produce space-ready, useful things (satelites, telescopes, etc). Its incredibly costly and complex to build things like the james webb telescope and that would be a great problem to have, but are there any measures of the demand for rocket capacity at given price points?
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- shthed 3y agohttps://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-test https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-... official spacex launch plans with estimated timelines