4 ms·

Not sure if you're being sarcastic. Have they managed to get starship to orbit yet?

delichon 1y ago
> Not sure if you're being sarcastic. Have they managed to get to orbit anything bigger than a banana? Yes, about 4,000 metric tons. My IP packets are traveling through part of it now.
- ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
  On starship?
  - delichon 1y ago
    You said "they". They are SpaceX. Their expertise is transferable to Starship.
    - ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
      Clearly not, because they've launched about 10 Starships and have failed to achieve orbit.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - allenrb 1y ago
        If they had achieved orbit on any Starship flight test, it would have been a serious violation of their launch license & test criteria. Hint: they’ve never tried to orbit Starship. Yes, they had expected to do more, sooner. So say that. What you’ve written here is nonsense. Starship is trying to do more than anyone ever has. If all (ALL!) they’d wanted to do was build a giant rocket with a reusable booster and an expendable second stage, they’d already be done.
        ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
        > If all (ALL!) they’d wanted to do was build a giant rocket with a reusable booster and an expendable second stage, they’d already be done. Maybe. But instead, in addition to building a giant rocket with a reusable booster and an expendable second stage, they also on want it to reach orbit, that's why it's not done yet. And likely will never be, because starship is severely underpowered.
        allenrb 1y ago
        I’m not even sure what to say to this. They’re barely short of orbit in terms of energy. Even if you believe that’s all they’ve got or will ever have, merely removing the recovery hardware and robustness from Ship gets them to orbit with payload. Otoh, maybe best to just believe what you want to. That’s sort of what we do these days, isn’t it?
        ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
        > merely removing the recovery hardware and robustness from Ship I mean if you have to remove important parts to get to orbit, you can't say that you could get to orbit. You couldn't, you just admited that you'd have to remove such and such. What am I missing?
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  As far as I know they only deployed some Starlink dummies so far.
Culonavirus 1y ago
Several times (if we keep disingenuous "wheeeel akchually" technical gotchas out of this). The fact that they keep safety in mind is a good thing. Any starship that got to space could have easily reached orbit, but it didn't because spacex cares more about NOT uncontrollably deorbiting a giant hunk of steel than impressing a "redditor" who doesn't understand how orbital mechanics work.
- ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
  You're suggesting that they could and don't, I'm suggesting that they can't. Apparently NASA is starting to have the same suspicions.
  - peterfirefly 1y ago
    We know they can.
- m4rtink 1y ago
  For comparison other organizations don't have an issue with leaving 20 ton rocket stages in orbit, leading to uncontrolled reenetry. :) https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a32451633/china-long-march-5b-rocket-debris/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a32451633/china-long-... That's 20 tons of mostly aluminium - 100+ ton stainless steel Starship would be potentially much more dangerous, so it is good SpaceX cares. :)

> Not sure if you're being sarcastic. Have they managed to get to orbit anything bigger than a banana? Yes, about 4,000 metric tons. My IP packets are traveling through part of it now.

ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
On starship?
- delichon 1y ago
  You said "they". They are SpaceX. Their expertise is transferable to Starship.
  - ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
    Clearly not, because they've launched about 10 Starships and have failed to achieve orbit.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - allenrb 1y ago
      If they had achieved orbit on any Starship flight test, it would have been a serious violation of their launch license & test criteria. Hint: they’ve never tried to orbit Starship. Yes, they had expected to do more, sooner. So say that. What you’ve written here is nonsense. Starship is trying to do more than anyone ever has. If all (ALL!) they’d wanted to do was build a giant rocket with a reusable booster and an expendable second stage, they’d already be done.
      - ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
        > If all (ALL!) they’d wanted to do was build a giant rocket with a reusable booster and an expendable second stage, they’d already be done. Maybe. But instead, in addition to building a giant rocket with a reusable booster and an expendable second stage, they also on want it to reach orbit, that's why it's not done yet. And likely will never be, because starship is severely underpowered.
        allenrb 1y ago
        I’m not even sure what to say to this. They’re barely short of orbit in terms of energy. Even if you believe that’s all they’ve got or will ever have, merely removing the recovery hardware and robustness from Ship gets them to orbit with payload. Otoh, maybe best to just believe what you want to. That’s sort of what we do these days, isn’t it?
        ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
        > merely removing the recovery hardware and robustness from Ship I mean if you have to remove important parts to get to orbit, you can't say that you could get to orbit. You couldn't, you just admited that you'd have to remove such and such. What am I missing?
Cthulhu_ 1y ago
As far as I know they only deployed some Starlink dummies so far.

Culonavirus 1y ago

Several times (if we keep disingenuous "wheeeel akchually" technical gotchas out of this). The fact that they keep safety in mind is a good thing. Any starship that got to space could have easily reached orbit, but it didn't because spacex cares more about NOT uncontrollably deorbiting a giant hunk of steel than impressing a "redditor" who doesn't understand how orbital mechanics work.

ekjhgkejhgk 1y ago
You're suggesting that they could and don't, I'm suggesting that they can't. Apparently NASA is starting to have the same suspicions.
- peterfirefly 1y ago
  We know they can.
m4rtink 1y ago
For comparison other organizations don't have an issue with leaving 20 ton rocket stages in orbit, leading to uncontrolled reenetry. :) https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a32451633/china-long-march-5b-rocket-debris/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a32451633/china-long-... That's 20 tons of mostly aluminium - 100+ ton stainless steel Starship would be potentially much more dangerous, so it is good SpaceX cares. :)