16 ms·
Starship Flight 7
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ekianjo 2y agothey did it!
- sbuttgereit 2y agoExcept for that whole second stage and payload part. Actually I thought there would be less risk with the second stage changes, significant as they were, than the second catch. (Maybe there was less risk, of course, and the dice just didn't roll that way).
- simonswords82 2y agoThis NASASpaceflight stream is up now: https://www.youtube.com/live/3nM3vGdanpw https://www.youtube.com/live/3nM3vGdanpw
- consumer451 2y agoAs is Tim Dodd’s https://www.youtube.com/live/6Px_b5eSzsA https://www.youtube.com/live/6Px_b5eSzsA Aside from coding, this is my favorite use of multiple screens.
- lysace 2y ago> Aside from coding, this is my favorite use of multiple screens. Great observation. I also do this. :-)
- sneak 2y ago...which has nothing to do with NASA the US government organization, or the NSF (FYI). It's just some independent streamers who apparently know you can't get trademark claims against you by the federal government.
- echoangle 2y agoI’m not sure about the NASA name itself, but apparently the graphic stuff is protected by a special law: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-V/part-1221 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-V/part-1221 So you wouldn’t exactly get a copyright claim when abusing the NASA logo but it’s still illegal. I couldn’t find anything about the NASA word itself though, just some articles reciting guidelines by NASA not to imply an endorsement by NASA. I don’t know how that’s enforced though.
- timewizard 2y agoYou cannot _misuse_ any official government logo or seal. Which effectively means creating a fake document with a real seal and then publishing it. The concern is fraud not sharing content. You are allowed to basically reproduce the work without any worries whatsoever.
- rigrassm 2y agoSpoken like someone who is generating their opinion from their channel name alone. Those "independent streamers" provide live launch streams with multiple feeds using their own equipment and to top it off they have numerous very knowledgeable hosts for all their streams. At this point I suspect they are covering every US based launch from all the major players. Hell, today they broadcasted both the New Glenn and Starship launches less than 24h apart. But yeah, let's get hung up on an organization name that originated as an Internet forum for discussing all things....... NASA!
- mmaunder 2y agoAnyone care to give the non spacey folks like me the highlights of this launch?
- qup 2y agoYou mean like later after it happens?
- why_at 2y agoIt's similar to last time if you saw that, the first stage will come back towards the launch site and they will try to catch it with the landing tower chopsticks, while the second stage does a soft landing in the ocean after going halfway around the earth. As far as new stuff, they are trying to deploy some simulated satellites from the second stage and will try to relight one of the engines.
- ericd 2y agoI also saw mention somewhere that this is V2 of Starship upper stage? Somewhat longer, and I’m sure a bunch of other changes to enable mass simulator deployment.
- wongarsu 2y agoYes, about 2m longer. Also some modifications to the heat shield, including testing new types of heat shield tiles. Also non-structural versions of new catch pins to see how they perform on reentry Edit: also, they are reflying one of the raptor engines that was on the previous flight (Engine 314, because pi).
- ericd 2y agoThanks, they also mentioned that they moved the upper flaps to reduce heating on them during reentry.
- AnotherGoodName 2y agoPreparing to launch 4:37pm CT (~45mins after this comment) First 10mins watching gets you to space with engine shutdown. 38mins after launch engine turns back on. 10mins after that reentry starts. 1:06 after launch is the landing. I think that covers it.
- chinathrow 2y agoTim Dodd is live as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Px_b5eSzsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Px_b5eSzsA
- paulpauper 2y agoof course, no space x event is complete without the scam fake streams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1VbZoYSyzA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1VbZoYSyzA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMG8BbUjwRk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMG8BbUjwRk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-uQNSxqQHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-uQNSxqQHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PYuUj777a0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PYuUj777a0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqsGPQnAP-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqsGPQnAP-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAC4JzHqRk4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAC4JzHqRk4
- sebzim4500 2y agoIt is incredibly to me that Google doesn't seem to give a shit about this. It would be so easy to fix.
- yreg 2y agoActually similar to how Twitter used to be. (Of course now it has other problems.)
- bbbbbenji 2y agoWhat problems does it have now?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- yreg 2y agoIntegrity, mainly. Elon is not an honest person and he will use any power at his disposal arbitrarily to silence people he dislikes when he feels like it. The most absurd example of all is the very recent case where Elon pretended to be a pro gamer and got caught. A streamer called Asmongold covered the topic on his stream, which triggered Elon to arbitrarily remove Asmongold's verified checkmark and remove his gaming badge. Considering the low stakes of this matter I find the actions ridiculous and don't trust Elon with having basically admin access to the platform at all. I've also heard plenty of horror stories about the ruthless way the engineering in X is currently done, often carelessly breaking stuff. However I have to point out that the service is and has been far far more stable than the "haters" have predicted back when Elon took over and fired all those people.
- yreg 2y agoWhen this comment gets 44 minutes old it's going to be T-0.
- cube2222 2y agoThis comment was very helpful and exactly what I wanted to know opening this discussion, and made me chuckle on top of that, thank you!
- dingaling 2y agoThank you, I was trying to convert Central Time to something understandable. All their systems and logging are running in UTC, why can't they just give launch times accordingly.
- yreg 2y agoYeah, I prefer this "when this comment is XY old" format the most when communicating internationally. Closely followed by UTC, of course. I hate having to convert from some time zone which I don't know by heart; with the additional risk of getting daylight savings or something wrong and missing the event.
- clueless 2y agoreminds me of the classic joke: a man walking down a street, stops and asks another person if they know what time it is. The person responds: I'm sorry as I don't have a watch on me, but you see that car parked over there? when it explodes, it should be 5pm
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kristianp 2y agoThis is version 2 of Starship, with some upgrades, such as longer starship. "Upgrades include a redesigned upper-stage propulsion system that can carry 25 per cent more propellant, along with slimmer, repositioned forward flaps to reduce exposure to heat during re-entry. For the first time, Starship will deploy 10 Starlink simulators" [1]. https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/heres-what-nasa-would-like-to-see-spacex-accomplish-with-starship-this-year/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/heres-what-nasa-would-... [1] https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/musks-starship-ready-for-launch-after-blue-origins-orbital-triumph/news-story/3dd5f8517c8821957907e2b28a3af19a https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/musks-starship-ready-...
- kristianp 2y agoI found an article from earlier in the week about the changes for this version of the upper stage: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/a-taller-heavier-smarter-version-of-spacexs-starship-is-almost-ready-to-fly/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/a-taller-heavier-smart...
- lysace 2y agoTwo years ago: I really didn't think they'd make all those engines work at the same time. They did.
- mjevans 2y agoI miss the time before X broke so many things, like official streams being on Twitch where I've already paid for ad free viewing.
- Osyris 2y agoMy big gripe is that X videos don't seem to support Chromecast at all. I used to watch SpaceX launches on my TV :(
- Cu3PO42 2y agoI now use AirPlay to extend a MacBook screen to my TV and play the stream that way. But it's so needlessly complicated compared to before :/
- agildehaus 2y agoLoad it in Chrome and cast the tab. Sucks that you have to involve your computer for the duration, but that's the most reliable way to do it IMO.
- cubefox 2y agoThere is an Android TV App apparently: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.x.xtv https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.x.xtv
- jryan49 2y agoJust watch the everyday astronauts coverage on YouTube! Great commentary, and feed from the official space x stream as well as their own cameras
- vatueil 2y agoSpace.com's YouTube channel always has a mirror of the official SpaceX livestream: https://www.youtube.com/@VideoFromSpace/streams https://www.youtube.com/@VideoFromSpace/streams Or if you would like additional commentary and extra camera views, there are independent channels such as Everyday Astronaut, NASASpaceFlight, Spaceflight Now, etc.
- 2y ago
- echoangle 2y agoCatch was successful again, very impressive.
- ceejayoz 2y agoThey may have lost the second stage, though.
- lysace 2y ago"we currently don't have comms on the ship" edit: the spacex stream just confirmed the loss.
- ceejayoz 2y agoTelemetry showed them lose engines one at a time, which isn’t a great sign.
- echoangle 2y agoI think that’s the normal shutdown order to reduce shock, the timing was exactly the expected second stage shutoff time if I understood it correctly.
- ceejayoz 2y agoOne of the three sea level engines went out and stayed out. It didn’t look normal. The numbers stopped updating with one engine still on.
- echoangle 2y agoRight, I just watched it again and it didn’t look normal. But interesting that telemetry showed the failures starting a few seconds before loss of telemetry, the videos posted here show a massive explosion later on. So something was going wrong for some time before, and the explosion was only a consequence of that. Or it was the FTS reacting to the engine failures.
- uejfiweun 2y agoUnbelievable. Congrats to the SpaceX team, again. Thank you for bringing the future into the present.
- fernandotakai 2y agoi still can't believe they can actually catch that first stage. it makes no sense, but works!
- modeless 2y agoOh no they lost the ship after the booster landed! Seems like they lost an engine, then I saw fire around the rear flap hinges in the last images before they cut out, and then the telemetry showed more engines shutting down until it froze. During ascent I also noticed a panel near the front fins that seemed to be loose and flapping. Probably not related but who knows. Edit: Here's a video of the aftermath. Strangely beautiful. https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662 https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662
- anothertroll123 2y ago[dead]
- anothertroll456 2y ago[dead]
- londons_explore 2y ago> fire around the rear flap hinges I believe it's pretty hard to have a fire at that altitude. You need a leak of both methane and oxygen, and an ignition source. I wonder if perhaps one of the engines split open and the exhaust wasn't going into the engine bell?
- hexad74 2y agoThat was so impressive. I was lucky enough to live in Florida and see the rockets go up. Standing on the beach and watching the first Falcon Heavy launch will be something that will always stick with me. Great job SpaceX.
- charles_f 2y agoThat "landing" (is it still considered a landing if it's chopsticked a few meters before it touches the ground?) is so unnatural it almost looks fake. So big and unimaginable that it feels like watching fx on a movie! The close-up camera right after was interesting, I thought it captured on the grid fins, but it looks like there are two small purpose-built knobs for that. The times we live in!
- ortusdux 2y agoIIRC, the grid fins are not strong enough to support the rocket, and reinforcing them would add too much weight to the vehicle. The plan is to catch the second stage the same way, and the starship in flight now is the first to have mockup pins to test the aerodynamics and see if they cause issues during reentry.
- gazchop 2y agoI heard someone say it's like trying to land the Statue of Liberty. Turns out the statue is actually shorter.
- levocardia 2y agoThe clearance is amazing -- probably bigger IRL than it looked on the camera, but it looked like only a foot or two between the chopsticks arm and the top of the rocket! The control algorithms on the gimballed engines must be insanely precise.
- yreg 2y agoYou have perfectly described the feeling I had regarding the first belly flop demo (at least I think it was the first one?) https://youtu.be/gA6ppby3JC8?si=wY7TQsbR_wxoud75&t=70 https://youtu.be/gA6ppby3JC8?si=wY7TQsbR_wxoud75&t=70 (ten seconds from the timestamp)
- iamronaldo 2y agoWow that was incredible
- artemonster 2y agoI like how chopsticks catch (a very impressive feat) completely distracts everyone from totally fucked timeline and already spent budget on mars mission. Its like any criticism is being drowned in loud cheers. Only time will tell, but I hope I will be wrong on this one
- ihumanable 2y agohttps://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-cool-cam https://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-cool-cam
- mardifoufs 2y agoWhat's the criticism exactly? Like I don't get your point? Yes they are behind on timelines and on Mars, does that mean that we should post reddit-tier cynical comments every time about that? I'm not saying that you're doing that, it's more that I don't get why this is surprising. And on the other hand, it's also funny to see how "skeptics" (whatever that means in this case) dismiss or belittle achievements that were claimed to be impossible a few months or years ago (for example, the chopstick landing). It's like a never ending treadmill of this is impossible->okay it happened, that's cool, but now xyz is impossible. Plus, it seems normal to me that people care less about some sort of budget details or delays than really cool technical feats.
- thisiscrazy2k 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kcb 2y agoSpaceX is by far and away the most capable organization on earth at taking all types of payloads to low earth orbit.
- jacobgkau 2y agoThey're the ones who were sent in to return two humans from the ISS after Boeing's ship malfunctioned last year. The explosions are typically from R&D projects; SpaceX is capable and practiced at transporting humans (and cargo) without their ships blowing up, and that's where most of their actual business currently is. (The Dragon is the vehicle they use for manned ISS missions.)
- numba888 2y ago4M viewers. comparable to top politics events. ship looks to be lost. this was the main part, so it's almost complete failure.
- egglemonsoup 2y agothese tests are designed to fail — the data collected now will ensure they don't blow up with actual people on them. test seems like a success to me
- numba888 2y agothey didn't get the telemetry after, what it was, 16 min(?) hope they'll find the reason which will be hard without black boxes like on airplanes. as every engineer knows it works flawlessly only at the end. if ever. the booster was the same, great, but not surprising.
- m4rtink 2y agoIIRC they had 30 cameras on board & who knows how many sensors (probably hudreds ?). So even if an engine bay fire burned the electronics and interrupted all coms (or FTS blew it up) they should already have a lot of data by that point showing how it went wrong.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- GuB-42 2y agoStill a failure in my book, it blew up before it could deliver its payload so they couldn't do many the tests they intended to do. It is possible they will have to add one more test launch to their schedule, delaying commercial operations because of that. It is not a complete failure, but to me, it is more failure than success, even by SpaceX test flight standards. Compared to the previous flight, that I consider a success, the booster catch was nice, but it is not the first, and they have plenty of tries left to perfect it, so it is not in the critical path.
- 2y ago
- victorbojica 2y agoWhat happens if the ship has exploded? Is there any kind of danger?
- wongarsu 2y agoThe flight paths are planned specifically so any potential debris has a high chance of landing in the ocean. If it actually exploded (either on its own or because the flight-termination system kicked in) most of it should burn up on reentry though.
- victorbojica 2y agoWhat happens if it doesn't explode and they just lost control over it? I'm mostly curios of the risks at that altitude.
- marssaxman 2y agoThe launch license requires them to build in a "flight termination system" which makes it explode if they lose control over it.
- ceejayoz 2y agoThat system didn’t work on the first big test flight, when it went spinning end over end. Part of the reason there was an FAA investigation.
- Polizeiposaune 2y agoThere's an autonomous flight termination system which triggers if it strays outside the planned flight corridor; any debris that survives reentry should then land in the advertised safety zone.
- wongarsu 2y agoIf it doesn't explode it might be light enough to survive reentry, after sailing on for a short while. In that case a large chunk of metal will come down either off the coast of South Africa or if continues on in its orbit potentially off the coast of Australia. [1] has the planned flight path, as well as the impact zones. 1: https://flightclub.io/result/3d?llId=c5566f6e-606e-4250-b8f4-477c5d82c798 https://flightclub.io/result/3d?llId=c5566f6e-606e-4250-b8f4...
- sabareesh 2y agoSeems they lost the ship , it is supposed to be v2 and had several changes
- nomilk 2y agoAmazing. 2nd ever catch of the booster via the 'chopstick' arms. Looks like the starship itself won't be splashing down west of Perth, instead telemetry has been lost (assuming RUD - "Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly").
- londons_explore 2y agoAnyone able to do some quick math to guess where the pieces might land based on the velocity+altitude? Bits might end up in africa on land somewhere...
- s1artibartfast 2y agoWOW, the footage of Starship reentry was amazing
- ls612 2y agoIt seems like they have the chopsticks catch down pretty well, but the ship exploded over the Atlantic so there's gonna have to be more tests before the ship can think about an RTLS test. More generally, getting the ship to work reusably seems like it will be a considerably greater challenge than reusing the boosters.
- terramex 2y agoLooks like second stage broke up over Caribbean, videos of the debris (as seen from ground): https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662?t=HdHFLYqgkaQzu0l1W2xLZg https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662?t=HdHF... https://x.com/realcamtem/status/1880026604472266800 https://x.com/realcamtem/status/1880026604472266800 https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115 https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115 Moment of the breakup: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/ https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/
- Cu3PO42 2y agoWhat a strangely beautiful sight. While I was excited to see ship land, I'm also happy I get to see videos of this!
- lsh123 2y agoCool video of the upper stage breakup from Turks and Caicos
- thehodge 2y agoVideo of the breakup - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/ https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/
- idlewords 2y agoPretty sure that's the flight termination system in action. It did well!
- jmward01 2y agoThe most important payload for this flight was data. The ship was always going to be lost so from a standpoint of testing this was a huge success! I'm excited to see how quickly they resolve whatever happened and get IFT 8 going.
- ggddv 2y ago[flagged]
- agumonkey 2y agoImpressive string of success
- motohagiography 2y agobeautiful although one wonders what they're trying to escape
- mempko 2y ago[flagged]
- egglemonsoup 2y agoExtremely shallow take on what is undoubtedly the rise of America's next great space era
- ceejayoz 2y agoThe entire program is likely cheaper thus far than a single SLS flight.
- renewiltord 2y agoI wouldn't worry too much. It costs more than that to add a bus lane in America.
- cubefox 2y ago> They burned billions of public funds, literally. Wrong. Public funds are not paying for Starship development but for the HLS variant development, at significantly lower cost than the HLS lander from Blue Origin. Which likely still doesn't cover the entire funding even for Blue Origin. A lot is paid by those space companies themselves. A NASA developed lander (Altair from the Constellation program), would probably have cost around an order of magnitude more.
- shkz 2y agoI noticed a strange debris at https://www.youtube.com/live/6Px_b5eSzsA?si=1hAiLjTrb7KUVaW7&t=9448 https://www.youtube.com/live/6Px_b5eSzsA?si=1hAiLjTrb7KUVaW7... thought it was ice from the outside but now i'm curious
- makk 2y agoLGTM. Ship it.
- _moof 2y agoBeefed it the day after New Glenn makes orbit on the first try. Different philosophies, I know, but if I were at SpaceX I would be pretty unhappy right now.
- enraged_camel 2y agoNG also failed the landing, so not really?
- zwily 2y agoNew Glenn lost its booster yesterday. Space is hard, tests will have failures.
- zqna 2y agoCan someone tell me what's the point of all this? To export capitalism outside of solar system?
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y agoJust to Mars, and maybe the asteroid belt. See [0]. [0] Expanse, The.
- gordian-mind 2y agoTo export the enjoyers of capitalism (a.k.a. humans) outside this planet, to visit the stars.
- exitb 2y agoThe point of a fully reusable launch vehicle? Similar to a fully reusable airplane or a car, I suppose. We have various interests in sending things to space, why not do it cheaply?
- distortionfield 2y agoSurvival of our species, for one. Never the mind short-sighted folks like yourselves clawing us back the entire way.
- zqna 2y agoIt's the opposite of the survival. When locust consumes everything around, it dies out.
- Kostic 2y agoOn a long-enough scale, this planet will die anyways. Let's first try to expand life and unlock the secrets of the Universe, as much as possible.
- zqna 2y agoAt this point in time the humanity has nothing to offer to any other intelligence (if there is any) out there, nor it doesn't have a need itself to go outside of its own planet, and the big mess that it made out of it. It's akin of letting a toddler walk out of the door and roam into a busy street merely for a satisfaction of its curiousity. What is more likely to happen is that the valuable resources that we still have will be gone (it won't take long, as consumption is growing at exponential rate), without ability to recover - a one way ticket to stone age. It's nice to dream and look at the stars, but can we please sort the shit here first?
- jmpeax 2y agoI wonder if the second stage failure was related to the metal flap seen here on the very left of the image: https://imgur.com/a/VS8IPdv https://imgur.com/a/VS8IPdv
- mobiledev2014 2y agoI watched this with my very young daughter and she pointed that out, she will be fascinated if that is the case!
- gunian 2y agoAny idea how long it took them to get the Falcon right? Or is comparing dev timelines for both a moot point because they are different classes of rockets
- ggreer 2y agoThe first Falcon 9 landing happened after 8 attempts at controlled splashdown or landing. Time from the first attempt to the first successful landing was a little over 2 years. In the year after their first successful landing, they succeeded in 5 out of 8 attempts. This wikipedia article has details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_first-stage_landing_tests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_first-stage_landing_t... Starship has had 7 tests in the past 20 months. The first test barely got off the pad due to engine failures. The stages failed to separate, so it was blown up shortly after liftoff. The second test did separate, but the booster blew up shortly after stage separation and the ship blew up shortly before engine shutdown, raining debris across the Atlantic similar to today. The third test got to space, but the booster landing burn failed and the booster impacted the ocean at close to the speed of sound. The ship couldn't maintain orientation and burned up on reentry. The fourth test succeeded at all goals (soft booster splashdown and successful reentry, though the flap did burn through). The fifth test was a success (booster catch and soft ship splashdown, though again with some flap burnthrough). The sixth test aborted the booster landing due to antennas on the tower being damaged by the rocket exhaust at launch, but did splash down softly offshore. The ship also reentered and splashed down on target. Today's ship failure is a setback, as it will likely take a few months for the FAA investigation to be completed. That said, SpaceX still seems likely to recover a ship intact this year, and at that point it will only be a matter of time before they can launch an order of magnitude more stuff into orbit than they can with the Falcon 9 fleet (and at much lower cost).
- romaaeterna 2y ago@elonmusk Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity. Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and probably increase vent area. Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month.
- ChuckMcM 2y agoWill be interesting to hear the postmortem on the second stage. The booster part seemed to work pretty flawlessly with the exception of a non-firing engine on boost back which then did fire during the landing burn. If the person doing their on-screen graphics is reading this, I wonder if you have considered showing tank LOX/CH4 remaining as a log graph. I believe it decreases logrithmically when being used (well it would if you keep 'thrust' constant) so that would create a linear sweep to the 'fuel level' status.
- modeless 2y agoI don't believe they throttle the engines up or down much during the second stage burn. Fuel decreases ~linearly and thrust is relatively constant. Acceleration increases as fuel mass decreases.
- ChuckMcM 2y agoI would be surprised if that was the case, my reasoning to that is that computing where a thing is going, when it's under going with changing acceleration AND changing mass, is pretty complicated. Especially if you already have the capability to throttle the engines and keep 'a' constant. They might, I'm not saying your wrong, I'm just saying that I cannot imagine how you would justify the added complexity of doing it that way.
- modeless 2y agoThe computations are complicated but not that complicated relative to everything else SpaceX is doing. It's much more important to optimize the propellant mass by using it most efficiently than to simplify some computations. And it's probably most efficient to burn the propellant as fast as possible.
- Galxeagle 2y agoAny extra time spent during a burn is wasted fuel. Intuitively, any time before the rocket is in orbit, some part of the rocket thrust is resisting the force of gravity or else it would fall back down to earth. The longer that time is, the more thrust (and thus fuel) was spent negating that force. It's the main reason why the Falcon 9 boosters do a 'hoverslam' on return and land at close to full throttle - any extra time during that burn is less fuel efficient. Better fuel efficiency = more payload to orbit = plenty of justification for the extra complexity. Admittedly gravity losses are more significant at the beginning when the booster/ship are ascending purely vertically than later in second stage flight which is mostly horizontal, but definitely still a factor.
- cruffle_duffle 2y agoEvery one of these are like right out of a sci-fi novel. It makes me truly excited for our future in a way little else out there does. Between this, AI (even in its current LLM form), and mounting evidence suggesting the entire solar system is teeming with at least microbial life, we are going to become an interplanetary species far sooner than many “skeptics” imagine. We are just one more lander / sample mission / whatever away from having solid proof of life elsewhere in the solar system. That is gonna jumpstart all a huge race to get humans out into deep space to check it all out. People worry about AI stealing their jobs… don’t worry. We need that stuff so humans can focus on the next phase of our history… becoming interplanetary. Your kids will be traveling to space and these (very overhyped, don’t get me wrong) LLM’s will be needed for all kinds of tasks. It sounds crazy but I maintain it’s true and will happen sooner than you’d think.
- SamBam 2y ago> mounting evidence suggesting the entire solar system is teeming with at least microbial life ?
- ActorNightly 2y ago> It makes me truly excited for our future in a way little else out there does. Hate to break it to you, but Space X isn't it. You can't have a CEO that is not aligned to the truth and reality to lead a company into something that is beneficial for humanity.
- dr_kiszonka 2y agoWeyland-Yutani
- tsimionescu 2y ago> Your kids will be traveling to space I can 100% guarantee to you that the children of anyone born today will not travel to space in any significant number. There is nothing in space to travel to until we build extremely complex habitats, and that can't be done with manual human labor, it requires mostly automatic drones and maybe a handful of human controllers living in the ship that brought them there. And building habitats that any significant amount of people (say, 1000) could actually live in will take a loooong amount of time and a huge amount of resources. And the question of "why would anyone waste time and resources on trying to live in conditions more inhospitable than anything the Earth can ever become, even with a major asteroid crashing into it in the middle of a nuclear war and a global pandemic?" will crop up long before more than one or two of these are finished.
- dlimeng 2y ago[dead]
- vvpan 2y agoI absolutely cannot relate to the HN excitement over rockets. What is the point? What are we going to do with them? It feels like half religion half misplaced techno-positivism. (Also a person who actively platforms outspoken neo-nazis runs the company that is launching them)
- Prickle 2y agoThe reason is pretty simple. The technology you are using right now, was created with knowledge that was obtained in orbit. If you use GPS, you are inherently reliant on satellites, delivered with rockets. Some of our resource shortages can be covered via resource acquisition in space. Pushing the space frontier, is far more interesting and important, than mobile phone screen size, or fidelity. It opens an entire new area to the sciences. Also big explody tube warms the cockles of my heart.
- spprashant 2y agoRockets are good. They give us hope that one day we ll explore the stars. Let people enjoy the small wins.
- The_Colonel 2y agoAlso, the (IMHO false) hope that we can escape the planet after we destroy it. Well, maybe the few richest will be able to do that ...
- kristianp 2y agoAlso the hope that we can go on vacation to the lunar hilton, or orbital O'Neill colony.
- sfifs 2y agoMany of the techie people on HN undoubtedly dreamed of building and flying rockets at some point in their tweens / teens till the harsh realities of the material world took over. So they are vicariously living childhood dreams... Just like many "normal" people live theirs by following sports teams or celebrities. To each their own :-)
- 2y ago
- october8140 2y agoCongratulations to the 14,000 SpaceX employees for their accomplishments.
- smusamashah 2y agoView of previous catch (flight 5) from a very distant vantage point was even more incredible for me. You can see the scale of things right there https://x.com/shaunmmaguire/status/1845444890764644694 https://x.com/shaunmmaguire/status/1845444890764644694 https://youtu.be/Vzyaud250Xo https://youtu.be/Vzyaud250Xo https://youtu.be/ntmssdzp_qY https://youtu.be/ntmssdzp_qY Anyone has similar view of this landing? Edit: distant view of flight 7 by the same person https://x.com/shaunmmaguire/status/1880044690428645684 https://x.com/shaunmmaguire/status/1880044690428645684
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- thomasjudge 2y ago"Rapid unscheduled disassembly"
- kopirgan 2y agoUS scientists and engineers are second to none in the world. But they are distant second to their own marketing guys in innovation. Rapid unscheduled disassembly!
- andrewflnr 2y agoRUD is in fact an old joke in rocketry, I believe invented by engineers to poke fun at marketing "innovation".
- heyrikin 2y agoHi there
- spaceguillotine 2y agoMusk've had Cybertruck QA team on this one.
- figassis 2y agoWhat worries me about space innovation is the fact that there is such little margin for error. Materials are being stressed so much while trying to defy the laws of physics that the smallest angle error, the smallest pressure mismatch, smallest timing error, and boom. This did not happen when we were inventing cars, trains and air planes. Now imagine these risks, while you're halfway to mars. Is it possible that we just have no found/invented the right materials or the right fuel/propulsion mechanism to de-risk this, and that is where we should be allocating a lot more resources?
- mmustapic 2y agoIt definitely happened with planes, we have a century of improvements that made them much much safer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatigue_(material)#de_Havilland_Comet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatigue_(material)#de_Havillan...
- floating-io 2y agoWhat makes you think this didn't happen in other industries? See the first iteration of the de Havilland Comet for a great example. The Space Industry to date has killed many fewer people than planes, trains, or automobiles.
- dbspin 2y ago> The Space Industry to date has killed many fewer people than planes, trains, or automobiles. Except as a proportion of passengers. In which case it's killed several of orders of magnitude more.
- floating-io 2y agoBecause people rarely go to space, and it was much more dangerous when the last person died than it is today. The vast majority of flights are unmanned, just like this test was. If you want to continue playing apples to oranges though, nobody has died on a spaceflight in the last twenty years. How many have died on airplanes in that timeframe? [correction: there was one additional fatal flight in 2014 with the destruction of SpaceShipTwo. I would argue that one doesn't count, though, as it was more akin to a relatively mundane aircraft accident than anything else.]
- thom 2y agoReally says something when manufacturing and space launch cycle times are faster than some software projects.
- sashank_1509 2y agoIkr, they’re testing 1 vehicle a month people, I’ve seen software projects tested slower
- ruivil7 2y agoBack a few years ago. This was the starship that in 2024 would reach Mars with humans, with so much space taken by crew and materials, and almost no fuel, and "10 times cheaper". And currently is an empty shell. Nice fireworks and show, but no meaningful payload yet. Not even LO. And this will be ready for 2026 artemis mission?
- GiorgioG 2y agoI’m not a big fan of Elon Musk, but this is just the typical executive talking up their product and to some extent being overly optimistic about timelines. You’d think with the quantity of software engineers in HN this would be obvious, but the (rightful IMO) disdain for Elon Musk is resetting people’s brains.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- computerex 2y agoGuy is a serial liar and you are making excuses on his behalf.
- GiorgioG 2y agoI hope you’re as vocal about your higher ups.
- The5thElephant 2y agoHe is a serial liar, but we can also actually see the engineering progress which is remarkable regardless of his overinflated timelines. His lying doesn't change the incredible work by those engineers and other employees of SpaceX.
- bamboozled 2y agoWhat does he have to do with the incredible work though ? Shit posting his way to mars ?
- nixpulvis 2y ago> as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary. What a waste of time and resources.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- EncomLab 2y agoFirst Shuttle orbited astronauts and successfully recovered all intended components. Every Saturn 5 was successful, the 3rd flight sent a crew to lunar orbit, and the 6th put a crew on the moon. To date a Starship has yet to be recovered after flight - and those launched are effectively boilerplate as they have carried no cargo (other than a banana) and have none of the systems in place to support a crew. Some people are really fetishizing iterative failure - but just because you are wandering in the desert does not mean there is a promised land.
- christophilus 2y agoI will say, though, that booster catch is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.
- EncomLab 2y agoYes- very impressive feat of engineering.
- bboygravity 2y agoSo what does a rocket company need to do to be imrpessive in your eyes?
- Over2Chars 2y agoIt needs to give him a job :-)
- hooli_gan 2y agoA Mars cargo mission, according to the timeline spacex set for themselves. https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F2HFqsVkiZc/YT9bPpXSKDI/AAAAAAAAGJM/eni8UpAmZ3Iu1L-0Q5Kdu9gRkEZ6HmTmQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/SpaceX+Starship+timeline+%25282021.06%2529+by+Ryan+MacDonald_infographic.jpg https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F2HFqsVkiZc/YT9bPpXSKDI/AAAAAAAAG...
- pms 2y agoThank you. This needs to be emphasized more.
- king_magic 2y agoMusk is going to end up killing a lot of people unintentionally.
- pkphilip 2y agoIt is amazing to see the number of fairly significant changes they tested in this launch. I guess that is the advantage of private space flights and rocket launches where the speed of development is must faster than in a place like Nasa or any government run space program. I am not surprised that stage 2 failed because they were testing with a lot of the thermal tiles removed.
- philipwhiuk 2y agoIt didn't get to the point of testing the thermal protection system.
- agluszak 2y ago"rapid unscheduled disassembly"
- skirge 2y agoStarship test successfull: - engineers did that Starship explodes: - Musk's failure!
- sys32768 2y agoSpeaking of exploding rockets, watch the hypnotic ending of Koyaanisqatsi with haunting music by Philip Glass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OacVy8_nJi0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OacVy8_nJi0 According to the comments, the footage in this scene is a Saturn V on a launchpad and then an Atlas-Centaur Missile.
- drillsteps5 2y agoCan someone please please PLEASE tell SpaceX PR/Streaming team that the speed (per SI system) is measured in meters per second, not kilometers per hour? The speed of sound is approx 300 m/s, orbital velocity is approx 8,0000 m/s (depending on altitude), free fall acceleration on Earth is 9.81m/s, 1.63m/s on the Moon, the speed of light is apporx 300,000,000 m/s, people learn these numbers in middle school. It's not 1000 km/h, or 28,000 km/h, it just looks so weird. Edit: ok, acceleration is meters per second per second, but my point stands.
- xhkkffbf 2y agoI understand the appeal of using the same combinations everywhere, but I thought the great thing about the metric system was that it was easy to convert. So 8000 m/s is 8 km/s.
- drillsteps5 2y agoThe problem is with the "hours" part. Which, not accidentally, is not even part of the SI.
- schiffern 2y agoIn the official BIPM brochure, hours are technically classified as "Non-SI units accepted for use with SI." This puts them in the same category as liters, hectares, tonnes, decibels, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-SI_units_mentioned_in_the_SI#Units_officially_accepted_for_use_with_the_SI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-SI_units_mentioned_in_the_...
- drillsteps5 2y agoI can read Wikipedia too. All the calculations are done in m, s, g, etc. if you want to dumb it down to the public you might as well go in miles per hour, leagues per day, etc., spaceflight is not the place where it is appropriate.
- 2y ago
- thomasfl 2y agoClever product placement of iPhone and Starlink and excellent storytelling. Space age technology used to connect astronauts to their loved ones on earth. Can’t be done any better.
- spandrew 2y ago"rapid unscheduled disassembly" > This marketing jargon speak for explosion is lulz
- CodeWriter23 2y agoCoders who require at least 7 iterations to properly implement a data entry form here grousing over a spaceship failure on the 7th iteration.
- jiggawatts 2y agoFailure of an entirely new, previously thought to be impossible combination of technologies. This is like complaining that your first attempt at new programming language paradigm resulted in a compiler that is slow and sometimes has internal errors!
- mempko 2y agoSpaceX started Starship development in 2012. Despite 12 years of work, its best test flight reached space but not orbit, sending a banana to the Indian Ocean. While NASA's SLS began in 2011 and successfully flew around the Moon in 2022. Blue Origin's New Glenn also started development in 2012 and reached orbit on it's first flight with an actual payload. When they say SpaceX is fast, what do they mean exactly?
- WorkerBee28474 2y agoThe last SLS launch was in November 2022. The next one is in April 2026. That is 42 months between launches. Starship may not go 42 days before the next launch. SpaceX's Falcon 9 + Heavy has launched on average once every 12 days since 2010. And while Starship was "in development" since 2012, that doesn't mean it was prioritized. The first prototypes were only made in 2018.
- mempko 2y agoProductivity is waste. A lot of us here build software and have this perverse idea that refactoring is value instead of waste. There is an old saying "Redo in design creates value, redo in production creates waste". SpaceX is deciding to just YOLO in production instead of doing good design.
- einrealist 2y agoWaiting for the day when they can load more than a banana. But I fear, the planet will be uninhabitable before that's a thing.
- cjbillington 2y agoThey had some Starlink simulators they were planning to deploy (to a suborbital trajectory, to re-enter along with the ship) this launch.
- MrSkelter 2y agoSaturn 5 was landing on the moon for the second time on its seventh flight. We have access to everything that program learned and taught for free. It’s all 60 year old tech. People shouldn’t forget how shockingly tardy and poorly designed Starship is by comparison. 7 flights in and it’s still exploding in a system that will require more than 10 launches for a single lunar flight. I am sure Musk’s groupies will assemble but the facts don’t care about your fandom.