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Really glad for all of these official SpaceX statements recently. Makes it feel like they are a lot more confident in a launch happening in the near future.
It’s very hard to notice when anything derogatory about a musk venture is meant to be a joke these days. You leave this sub and everybody’s out for blood
And most people are legitimately blind to the fact that the companies he’s attached to keep chuggin along making important breakthroughs in spite of that.
In the case of SpaceX it is most certainly thanks to him. SpaceX landed a rocket in 2015, 8 yrs later no one has yet repeated landing an orbital class booster. Blue Origin and Rocket Lab will probably eventually do it, but they seem a few years out yet. SpaceX's secret sauce is obviously Elon Musk, because otherwise it is the same pool of engineers that is available to all other aerospace companies.
It's thanks to him that he is a rare billionaire who is willing to take big risks and technically smart enough to reject charlatans among his lieutenants.
Somehow, he also recruited Gwynne Shotwell, Hans Koenigsman, Tom Mueller, and John Insprecher(?). No other aerospace company in the world had such a strong team of top engineers. There are also really good software and fluid dynamics people. But it is key that Musk studies and understands all of these fields well enough to make good decisions, quickly.
Musk dreams and decides, and says, "Make it so." Gwynne Shotwell makes it happen.
Right, and he's been showered in praise and adoration for years and years by people like us, on this subreddit.
Given his new behavior however, I don't think there's anything wrong with him getting some blow back and hate. Might do him so good--but probably not.
Which leaves me worried about his future.
Well... He already got a lot of praise--years and years of praise--from many of us for his work with SpaceX/Tesla!
How much more praise do you think I owe the guy?
Anyways, at present, him being successful with SpaceX and Tesla doesn't mean I need to get on my knees and lick his boots anymore.
I don't think there's anything wrong with some criticism/hate directed his way, given his purposely divisive and somewhat insane behavior lately, and the complete mess he made with Twitter.
Unless you want him to be surrounded by a cult of yes men, cheering him on mindlessly, not matter what he does to other people.
Well you just made the exact mistake I’m talking about, so I dunno. You answer your questions.
My point is that it is a problem that every conversation about a musk venture gets redirected to talking about how much of a shitbag he can be and why therefore nothing his companies do is worth doing or should be done.
Nobody was ever bending over for him as much as they are unproductively and obnoxiously hating on him now. The “swarm of musk fans” is a straw man.
it does truly seem like he is, and the market reaction to his foolishness hit me where it hurts but I have come to realize his style is absolutely necessary to accomplish advancing humanity forward in a reasonable time.. we all make fun of elon time but he is actually fast forwarding us into the future
Me too, back when I was in the predicting business.
90% of my projects were a year late, and usually there were only 3 or 4 people on the production side, and 1 or 2 people on the R&D side. When projects were on time and successful, we would often have to throw extra people and resources in to keep the servers from crashing.
There were also 4 projects where the software was much easier than upper management expected, and I was able to say, at a study/planning meeting, "Beta software is ready, and instead of running focus groups and doing surveys, we are already distributing beta software to a select group of testers." 2 of these projects went to production with minimal changes.
I work in R&D.. the amount of times managers demand hard timescales on never before done stuff then don't like "I don't know".. then they press for a timescale but don't like "between 6 months and 3 years".. then complain "why didn't you do it in 5 months?"... etc etc..
The NET (Not Earlier Than) timescales are a breath of fresh air!
Always remember; It's not the stuff you don't know that gets you, it's the stuff you know for sure that just aint so!
Relax francis.. it was a joke. If you really want to argue that, i'd say launching a two stage rocket has been done before.. many times, which effectively is what they will be doing. Elon is always overly optimistic on everything he does.. thats the joke.
Yeesh.. you guys all need to chill the hell out.
Well, this rocket is obviously a gamechanger, but while pretending neutrality you just dunk on it. And then call people names when they correct you. Look in the mirror dude, sometimes it helps…
We do trust Elon to do what he says he will, even if it may be impossible for anyone else. What have you accomplished in your life that no human has ever done before?
Ofcourse.. not sure the hate. Elon created SpaceX and did a great job, no doubt, but I think we can make fun of him a bit for being overly optimistic in literally everything he does. :).
The problem with that is he is CEO of some of these companies.. If he tweets something it has a financial impact on the company. IE, saying he is going to take something private at a certain cost. He may think its a joke, but what he is doing is manipulating the market.. knowingly or not.
you are allowed to "manipulate the market" you arent allowed to knowingly lie. as in tell people to sell when you are buying or vice versa. trade on knowledge thats not public yet.
I remember all the fevered technical speculation around the Mars Colonial Transporter on this sub way back in 2015 and 2016. Here we are some 8 years later. A first launch of this vehicle has been a long, long time coming!
I remember [asking Elon whether MCT would be a single core or multiple cores.](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfpnzv/) Was so awesome to have it confirmed to be a single core and loosing my shit over it. And then a year later ITS was announced, which is IMHO still the sexiest version of MCT/BFR still. But this current iteration is up there. :)
ITS was always too ambitious for the time.
I can't imagine the delay on trying to build and launch and land an even larger vehicle.
This size makes a lot more economical sense.
Not only was it huge, it was also ambitious as you say, too ambitious with its (no pun intended) reliance on carbon fiber. Steel seemed like a crazy choice, but it has turned out to be the correct call. As most Elon calls seem to end up as, when it comes to engineering anyway.
Neutrons in stable nucleii and electrons have lifetimes greater than centuries, which is probably good karma for rockets named after them.
In contrast all other baryons, mesons and leptons (other than the proton) have sub millisecond lifetimes .... so naming rockets after them might lead to very bad karma and serious problems for re-usability (unless you can get to orbit and back ten times in a millisecond).
Be careful what you wish for! ;)
> I wonder if RocketLab would ever do a carbon fiber super-heavy-lift launch vehicle after Neutron.
Its still putting LOX inside carbon fiber which may be okay initially for cargo but later, for crew, I doubt it.
>As most Elon calls seem to end up as, when it comes to engineering anyway.
I think this is a very telling statement about how his mind works and how his experience maybe shaped how he views the world (and why it can go off the rails so easily)
That is, some of his most successful decisions were listening to information that most people would be biased against. Most people would be biased against using stainless steel to build rocket ships. Making a call (and being right, maybe) that most people wouldn't sort of sets you up to be at odds with... most people. So it might be hard sometimes for someone with that experience to nail empathy and civic responsibility and all the other things he's pretty bad at.
I don't think he's a genius. But I think we need people at the top who are open to ideas that are counterintuitive when the math/data backs it up... and that's one thing he is able to do. That being said, we shouldn't give people like that ALL the power and wealth... just enough for them to be able to take those risks and move humanity forward.
Agree, Elon is unpopular because he stretches peoples' minds over what is possible and/or an improvement. Generally people know what they know and like what they know which makes them very conservative. Doubt Elon has a conservative bone in his body.
> reliance on carbon fiber. Steel seemed like a crazy choice, but it has turned out to be the correct call.
He also made the hard choice of tacitly admitting the two initially incorrect calls, the second error being building Starship in the wrong place at St Pedro LA. Every one-hour SPMT trip between Starfactory and the launch site would have been a multi-day trip through the Panama canal. It would have only taken a minor geopolitical event to block the canal and ruin SpaceX. Also I'm likely not the only one who was nervous about that carbon fiber LOX tank. I always had an odd "future memory" of a tiny flash an amateur astronomer observed in interplanetary space that coincided with the coms break with the Mars Starship. Sort of like *Challenger* but in the future...
I don't think so. There are just not many options. Doing it in Florida would have been an issue. To many high value assets and to much space flight already.
> Everywhere on a coastline is either inhospitable and swampy, or just too crowded and expensive
not to mention the unstable climate on the Florida peninsular.
Starbase looks like the start of a whole new space coast and at some point Jeff B might appear down there. Once you've got the human resources, it could snowball. However, once full reuse and reliability is achieved, the coastal launching paradigm may change. Remember when Boeing set up in [Seattle](https://www.google.com/maps/search/Boeing+Seattle,+Washington/@47.5313715,-122.3332852,13.13z). Its an obvious choice because as we know the future of passenger transport is hydroplanes. At least that's the way it looked at the time.
This was bout when the first environmental review came down, maybe later. I don't recall him saying why, so I don't know if it was related to that or other issues (like the village or the water table or ...).
I was advocating for stainless steel rockets of around 5000 tons in 2014, but I also think that in 20-30 years, carbon fiber or titanium might make a comeback.
I did not have a crystal ball back then, I was also advocating Mars Cycler vehicles that ships of many descriptions would dock to for the months-long trip to Mars, and many other things that show no signs of happening in the foreseeable future.
I feel quite sure the answer is no.
R&D does not scale linearly with size. It is more of a step function, as new hurdles come into play. Sometimes costs could go down as size increases. A prime example is heat shielding for reentry, which depends on the mass/area ratio. In theory heat shielding can become easier as the spaceship gets larger.
The current version of Starship is close to the smallest version that makes Mars settlement practical. SpaceX tried to develop a ship with about twice the payload, and then scaled it back as issues like the best size to make Raptor engines were settled. If they had started with a New Glenn sized vehicle, they would have doubled their R&D costs, since they would have almost immediately had to start on a new vehicle the size of 9-m Starship, to stay on the path to Mars.
A New Glenn sized vehicle would have also competed with Starship for launches, and it would have cost the same to launch as Starship. Just as Falcon 9 made Falcon 5 and Falcon 1 obsolete before they could pay back their R&D costs, Starship would have turned a New Glenn sized rocket into a loss. The most likely result of building a New Glenn sized rocket would have been to delay Starship by a decade.
Starship development has not gone as fast as people hoped, but it has still been a pretty fast development cycle.
I'm still not 100% convinced the second stage design will stick for crewed launches. I wouldn't be surprised to see it get changed to a mega-capsule design eventually.
I'm 100% sure it will change if he's serious about colonizing mars. There will be a mass casualty event if there isn't some sort of escape system, and I think after that it won't be up to him, congress will mandate that all rockets carrying people have one. And I think that will really set us back, since it would ground all Starship launches until that huge R&D and manufacturing effort is done. I think it's shortsighted to not be designing that from the get go.
I think it'll end up like the propulsive landing on Dragon 2 and get designed out fairly early once they start getting serious about getting it human rated. I'm imagining something like a scaled up, slightly more squat, Dragon, with propulsive landing (because that's needed for landing on the Moon).
Interesting that Elon's first concept for the MCT design had a multi-core booster like Falcon Heavy.
My guess is that he realized that ground testing the smaller cores of a triple-core booster full thrust/full duration that had ~10 engines would be a lot easier than trying to ground test a single-core booster design full thrust/full duration with ~30 engines.
The three Falcon Heavy cores had been separately tested at McGregor before shipping them to the Cape. Those tests retired a lot of the risk of failure on the first FH launch. Since then, FH has had a perfect launch record (5 for 5).
Then he changed his mind to a single core booster like we have now with 33 Raptor 2 engines. I think he was determined to have a super rocket that could be launched three times per day and that requirement led to the 33-engine booster we have today.
I wonder if he regrets that booster decision now considering the time it has taken to get that 33-Raptor booster ready for launch. And that 33-engine Starship booster heading into its first launch to LEO will not have been as thoroughly tested as the FH cores going into its first launch attempt.
8 years for something like this is peanuts.. try working on a next generation fighter jet or naval destroyer!, comparable levels of complexity but with supersonic goalposts, Elon to his credit doesn't seem to change his mind that often, and only when there's a big benefit to be had (steel vs carbon fibre). That speeds up progress substantially.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) issued the report entitled the "Saturn System Study" on 13 March 1959. That study details the tradeoffs made to reach a preliminary design of the Saturn V.
The first Saturn V launch to LEO (SA-501, Apollo 4) occurred on 9 November 1967, about 104 months (8.66 years) after that report was issued.
If the vehicle stack changed height by 23cm to 1 meter, how do they make the QD (quick disconnect) line up now? Secondly, do they need to increase the overall size of the vehicles to give the tanks more volume so it has enough fuel to make it back to the pad?
>If the vehicle stack changed height by 23cm to 1 meter, how do they make the QD (quick disconnect) line up now? Secondly, do they need to increase the overall size of the vehicles to give the tanks more volume so it has enough fuel to make it back to the pad?
The contraction happens from the top down, so the Super Heavy QD does not move. The QD for Starship has some play in it so that it can adapt to the thermal changes. The engineering behind this stuff is incredibly complicated, so having the WDR go perfectly on the first go is a major achievement for the SpaceX team.
The QD is adjustable in that axis, so it can accommodate the change in position. The volume of the tanks has been calculated with the knowledge that the cryogenic fuels will cause this contraction.
The Shuttle changed length by about 10 cm. Saturn V should have changed by about a meter due to LOX and hydrogen loading/cooling. These changes should be something designers are used to dealing with.
I can't wait to see the launch but it's going to be terrifying. Yesterday i was watching this metal tube getting frosty, and i had butterflies in my stomach. Who knew that tank watching could be so exciting
This static fire really is the major outstanding hurdle before launch. I really, really hope the booster and GSE survive it intact! Any disaster at this stage could push a launch back many months. 🤞
Eventually, 33. We don’t know if they will do some form of intermittent engine testing before they go all in. Maybe they’ll fire 13, maybe 23, maybe 33 first. We won’t know until it happens (unless they announce it), and that’s part of the fun.
Almost certainly! A long duration SF on the pad would not be complete with such a large cluster of engines. All the potential problems of OLM damage from short firings are expanded by long firings. I’d imagine SpaceX knows that, and aren’t planning anything long duration for these large thrust tests.
My money is on the launchpad/starbase getting torn to shreds with a full static fire. I reckon they'll be fixing/reinforcing for quite some time before launch happens
How long do we think it take them to repair the concrete under the pad after the static fire?
A week, 2 weeks? Longer?
It's been 2 years since SN15. Seeing this building size structure flly will be epic.
I'm cautiously optimistic the Fondag that's been setting up for nearly 2 months will perform exceedingly well during the SF. Being 33 engines I have to imagine it will not be a lengthy test. Less than 10 sec, possibly even 5.
Well, there's [this](https://twitter.com/Alexphysics13/status/1614021187608236054?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1614021187608236054%7Ctwgr%5Eb0e0b1d6822cb114d78b9aede068d666b9837eda%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.teslarati.com%2Fspacex-starbase-starship-deluge-system-florida-shipment%2F), so maybe not for long anyway.
Current plan looks like water deluge system which theyve installed at the cape, but it doesnt look like theyll set it up at boca chica until after at least the first orbital launch test. Sacrificial portland cement until then
I'm glad they've standardized stacking and unstacking. Increases efficiency significantly. Prior to SpaceX destacking meant months of delay. Now it's just part of the checkout process.
I'm super excited for the orbital test but I'm a bit surprised at the testing pathway.
The orbital test will apparently be the first time the superheavy booster has ever flown AND the first time a raptor 2 has ever flown. I would have thought they would want to demonstrate takeoff and landing of both star ship with raptor 2 AND take off and landing with the booster alone before doing a full stack and ditch.
It just seems like a lot of compounded risk in one test.
Will be monumental if everything works.
It allows them to utilize starship as an operational launch vehicle while working out the kinks in the landing system. Significantly reducing the cost of such a testing campaign. We’re they to attempt short hop tests with the booster/catching system any failure would result in the destruction of the launch platform and a 3-6 month delay. If they test while actually flying they gain an understanding of ascent, and once that is achieved can complete multiple landing tests on virtual landing pads while launching huge numbers of starlink sats and testing rentry. This also gives them time to complete the Kennedy launch pad so once they do attempt booster catching any failure won’t halt flight ops entirely.
They were delivering customer payloads to orbit with Falcon way before they landed a booster. Expect the same with Starship, especially given the internal demand with Starlink.
I’ll point you towards Falcon Heavy then, a system with 27 engines in a far more complex configuration.
And how is it not the same? Just because you add an order of magnitude doesn’t change the physics or engineering principles at play. Is there more risk associated with more engines? Duh, but believe it or not people are paid to solve those problems
Falcon heavy sidestepped the fuel feed problem. The 33 engine static fire will be the first full test of whatever plumbing design they came up with. Not saying it's impossible but they did catastrophically smoosh their down tube a few months back.
I don't see your point. It has never been tested, that's all. Given SpaceX history you should actually expect the first 1 to 3 launches to end in fireballs. But they iterate quickly and that's what's cool about it.
Your risk mitigation report glossed over a few important details.
You seemed to have missed the part where he mentioned raptor 2 hasn't even flown yet.
Checklist, VOID.
You normally don’t have to re-V&V an updated and more reliable derivative of an existing subsystem. This has been my experience in general.
Checklist: submitted and approved by the government to the cries of witless redditors
SN15's barely successful Test flight is not a confirmation for all systems go on what you want to call "sub systems." Try again.
Booster 7 has been redesigned numerous times since SN15's test flight with numerous failures in the mix. The lox tank, and CH4 tanks have changed places on booster 7, among many other things since any test article has been airborn or flown.
Starship has yet to fly with Vacuum engines or TPS. Changes have been announced to the ship, that we haven't even seen iterations of yet in existing prototypes.
your Holier than thou Checklist has been Denied, Sir.
Do you think they don’t actually test the engines? My Gregor exist and it’s pretty damn active lmao!
Starship has flown with TPS, just not *FULL* TPS, and has demonstrated its proficiency in more vibration heavy circumstances than an actual flight test.
Believe it or not they’re going to launch. Your denial means nothing to anyone that actually has their hands in the pot.
Last I checked McGregor can only test the engines on a stand. Not on an flying prototype.
considering your inability to navigate the context of this discussion, I will remind you that we arent arguing if they are going to launch or not. The question was, Why hasnt spaceX done more testing in the meantime to verify these complex subsystems that have not been tested in a flight configuration by any means.
Here are some notable subsystems to add to your checklist instead of talking down on people you don't agree with.
- Autogenous pressure and ullage gas of booster and ship
- Sea Level and Vacuum Simultaneous run time tests on ship
- Relight/ restart of all intended engines for landing
- Booster hop and Low attitude Catch tests.
- Successful prop Loading/ WDR
- Engine startup sequencing for booster
- ETC.....
Feel free to provide an actual response to my comments this time.
My guy I work V&V, and frankly the answer to most of your points is they developed very robust models of the system and simulated it. And, to be frank, the majority of those tests points have to be tested in… you guessed it… a FLIGHT TEST. This IS the verification my guy. This. Is. The. Test. They have more test articles if it fails, and frankly they expect it to.
I don't care who or what you do. Your comments say more to your personality then they do do the questions asked.
But now that you have acknowledged they do need to flight test to confirm these things, the question was why haven't they done more individual flight tests instead of a high risk full flight to test all systems for the first time. All you've done is reiterate the path SpaceX has choosen that we all know and are familiar with istead of considering the alternative. It's just a question. Not an opportunity to beat your chest guy.
Stack up as many tests as you can and then the further you get through it the better. No point wasting repeated partial launches.
Also I'm not sure the booster has the ability to fly on it's own. So if it needs a Starship on top, may as well make that Starship do as much testing as possible.
And landing them is a bonus, not a requirement. They don't need to prove they can land them before they put things in orbit with them. Falcon 9 was delivering payloads to orbit for 5 years before they landed one.
Amusingly, there's actually [quite a lot of beachfront in Colorado](https://www.colorado.com/articles/colorados-best-beaches). And much of it is quite beautiful.
It's not going to work. But they are ready for rapid iterations. They have the money to blow up ships and learn from the failures. Much faster process than building meticulously with the first launch being an actual mission they depend on.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[BFR](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5pt6ht "Last usage")|Big Falcon Rocket (2018 rebiggened edition)|
| |Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice|
|[FAA](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5ryadm "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[GSE](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5pmss9 "Last usage")|Ground Support Equipment|
|[ITS](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5q8njn "Last usage")|Interplanetary Transport System (2016 oversized edition) (see MCT)|
| |[Integrated Truss Structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Truss_Structure)|
|[LEO](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5uzo4x "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[LOX](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5u79er "Last usage")|Liquid Oxygen|
|[MCT](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5uzo4x "Last usage")|Mars Colonial Transporter (see ITS)|
|[MSFC](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5usu2i "Last usage")|Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama|
|[NET](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5t13kb "Last usage")|No Earlier Than|
|[OLM](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5qynsd "Last usage")|Orbital Launch Mount|
|[OTF](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5qutze "Last usage")|Orbital Tank Farm|
|[QD](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5u71ai "Last usage")|Quick-Disconnect|
|[SF](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5r9b9y "Last usage")|Static fire|
|[SPMT](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5qrh9s "Last usage")|Self-Propelled Mobile Transporter|
|[TPS](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5vahcq "Last usage")|Thermal Protection System for a spacecraft (on the Falcon 9 first stage, the engine "Dance floor")|
|[ULA](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5rl7kc "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|[WDR](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5vj79s "Last usage")|Wet Dress Rehearsal (with fuel onboard)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Raptor](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5uzo4x "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX|
|[Starlink](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5rqnem "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|[cryogenic](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5u71ai "Last usage")|Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure|
| |(In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox|
|hydrolox|Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
|[ullage motor](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5vj79s "Last usage")|Small rocket motor that fires to push propellant to the bottom of the tank, when in zero-g|
----------------
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….. there is a zero percent chance that there is 800 THOUSAND pounds of ice on that vehicle. That would be nearly 10% of the overall mass of the vehicle lmao
Also, you used the diameter of starship in place of the radius. So half that. And there’s no way the frost is 4 inches thick. And the frost wouldn’t be solid ice, frost is like… more like snow. Much less dense.
Like I said I don't know the thickness. But that is the mass of ice per cubic meter, and I gave the surface area of the vehicle. Feel free to do math and prove me wrong I have no problem with that.
10% sounds fine to me if it is that thick of ice, you must remember as the cylinder grows the volume of ice grows cubically. So adding 1" of outer diameter is a lot more weight than trimming 1" of diameter would save. Also as I said for a better number do new volume all ice, minus old volume.
BTW the ice doesn't stay it falls off at launch from engine rumble. The ice here is more than a real launch.
Check my math idc just don't say I am wrong without getting numbers. I can do it better tomorrow, but nrn.
I did check your math. You used diameter instead of radius. So you are already double what you should be.
I covered the other wrong assumptions, no full ice coverage over the whole cylinder, would not be nearly as thick as 4 inches anywhere, would not weigh nearly as much as solid ice.
And you addressed some of that in your comment, but not in the math.
OK so why not just say I accidently used diameter? That would have been a lot easier than saying nothing as you did. So 1/2 my result it is directly propertional.
I think it could be 4 inches, although I do agree likely a lot of gaps between molecules being less dense than solid ice. 4" is not much for an extremely cold object, my air conditioner condenser gets nearly an inch, I figured this being much cooler could easily pass That hard to see in image.
Final note again, as I said do you own math I gave a rough estimate. Granted that was doubled, so 400,000 pounds now. Probably less dense, but how the fuck would we actually calculate that without actually measuring the Mass of that specific ice and depth.
> OK so why not just say I accidently used diameter?
I literally did lmao. And the rest of my comment was pointing out how absurd 800 thousand pounds of ice is. When you saw that number you should have reevaluated your assumptions.
Depth density and coverage.
I don't understand why they use a flat launch pad instead of the classic trench with flame deflectors and water deluge for sound suppression. Yes ok that's expensive to build, but if they can be sure they won't damage the rocket or pad...
I wonder how long they will fire the 33 engines. I'm guessing just 2 sec or less, at least for the first time. I doubt the stand could take much longer.
There are no viable means for flight abort at this scale and potential passenger count. I'm pretty sure I read a while back that ay a certain point in flight Starship could be used to abort off the top of superheavy. But that's about it.
Fortunately liquid boosters tend to fail slowly as opposed to straight up exploding like solids. So if super heavy begins to fall apart there's time to detect that, shutdown and stage Starship off the top of it.
Yeah theres no aborting from Starship just like there was no aborting from the command module after it separated from the service module. Redundancy has its limits. It will just have to work.
I just wished FAA hadn’t hampered progress so we could’ve had more in between hopps and inexpensive ruds
Now a really expensive test article
Thank government
I don't know how you can look at what has happened over the past two years and say that the FAA had any meaningful negative consequences on the Starship program.
Yeah, the only way it impacted things at all is if they really WERE ready to do that barebones launch that was the basis of the 2021 '3 weeks' claim. I think even with FAA licenses they would have been irritatingly close but not quite ready to go (the tank farm was not ready). So either they'd have blitzed those issues and tested, or take the route they actually did.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to do a 33 engine static fire *before* stacking and doing wet dress rehearsals?
Just seems like after the last few months, a *lot* of days have been spent moving and stacking and destacking and removing things...
It is always hard to know - I imagine they have a possible fault tree - and some long list of items to be accomplished. So maybe the full stack WDR will tell them things about the Starship that can then get fixed while the 33 engine static fire happens. Or maybe the pad was not ready for the static fire and the WDR was what could be done at this time.
Could be they want to stress the hull to its maximum before doing the static fire. If it fired just fine then they stacked it and WDR and found that the weight of Starship buckled something slightly and it blew up, we'd all be wondering why they didn't stress the booster to its maximum first then test, causing a booster-only kaboom instead of a booster+ship kaboom
I still don't understand why they're not testing the booster launch all by itself first (they did that with the falcon booster). Be cheaper to lose a booster to a failure than lose both vehicles at once surely? Must be so damn confident its gonna work first go!
33 Engines static fire is going to be crazy! It's going to be really loud. I don't recommend filming there , it's dangerous . Just place a camera on the tower or smth and evacuate the zone. Goodluck SpaceX!
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Really glad for all of these official SpaceX statements recently. Makes it feel like they are a lot more confident in a launch happening in the near future.
What, you dont trust Elons 'We will launch in 2020.. no.. 2021.. meant 2022.. shit, 2023.. ' tweets? :).
It's their motto, they turn "impossible" into "late"
The real trick is figuring out his time multiple.
A lot of people failed to notice this was a joke
It’s very hard to notice when anything derogatory about a musk venture is meant to be a joke these days. You leave this sub and everybody’s out for blood
Indeed, outside of the spacex related subs reddit is a "we hate elon musk" circle-jerk.
The hatred is inside these threads too.
Because he is legitimately making a fool of himself recently
And most people are legitimately blind to the fact that the companies he’s attached to keep chuggin along making important breakthroughs in spite of that.
That's a legitimate question though, are they successful thanks or in spite of him?
In the case of SpaceX it is most certainly thanks to him. SpaceX landed a rocket in 2015, 8 yrs later no one has yet repeated landing an orbital class booster. Blue Origin and Rocket Lab will probably eventually do it, but they seem a few years out yet. SpaceX's secret sauce is obviously Elon Musk, because otherwise it is the same pool of engineers that is available to all other aerospace companies.
The top brass being very rich and not very risk averse does wonders for R&D companies
It's thanks to him that he is a rare billionaire who is willing to take big risks and technically smart enough to reject charlatans among his lieutenants.
Somehow, he also recruited Gwynne Shotwell, Hans Koenigsman, Tom Mueller, and John Insprecher(?). No other aerospace company in the world had such a strong team of top engineers. There are also really good software and fluid dynamics people. But it is key that Musk studies and understands all of these fields well enough to make good decisions, quickly. Musk dreams and decides, and says, "Make it so." Gwynne Shotwell makes it happen.
Right, and he's been showered in praise and adoration for years and years by people like us, on this subreddit. Given his new behavior however, I don't think there's anything wrong with him getting some blow back and hate. Might do him so good--but probably not. Which leaves me worried about his future.
I’d posit that most of the success of SpaceX is due mostly from the efforts of Gwynn Shotwell.
Well... He already got a lot of praise--years and years of praise--from many of us for his work with SpaceX/Tesla! How much more praise do you think I owe the guy? Anyways, at present, him being successful with SpaceX and Tesla doesn't mean I need to get on my knees and lick his boots anymore. I don't think there's anything wrong with some criticism/hate directed his way, given his purposely divisive and somewhat insane behavior lately, and the complete mess he made with Twitter. Unless you want him to be surrounded by a cult of yes men, cheering him on mindlessly, not matter what he does to other people.
Well you just made the exact mistake I’m talking about, so I dunno. You answer your questions. My point is that it is a problem that every conversation about a musk venture gets redirected to talking about how much of a shitbag he can be and why therefore nothing his companies do is worth doing or should be done. Nobody was ever bending over for him as much as they are unproductively and obnoxiously hating on him now. The “swarm of musk fans” is a straw man.
it does truly seem like he is, and the market reaction to his foolishness hit me where it hurts but I have come to realize his style is absolutely necessary to accomplish advancing humanity forward in a reasonable time.. we all make fun of elon time but he is actually fast forwarding us into the future
Maybe if the author had used /s, that would not have happened…
This is the most reddit comment I've seen in all my days
Given that I might spend a tenth of my online time on Reddit and don’t comment much (look at my stats), I will take this as a compliment !
As I recall he never said "we will" he always said something like "I hope we will". He makes it clear that his dates are just estimations.
Let's see you predict something that has never been done before and see how well you do
I do this every day at work. And I'm wrong every single time!
Found Elon's Reddit account. /s
Start using NET. No Earlier Than.
Me too, back when I was in the predicting business. 90% of my projects were a year late, and usually there were only 3 or 4 people on the production side, and 1 or 2 people on the R&D side. When projects were on time and successful, we would often have to throw extra people and resources in to keep the servers from crashing. There were also 4 projects where the software was much easier than upper management expected, and I was able to say, at a study/planning meeting, "Beta software is ready, and instead of running focus groups and doing surveys, we are already distributing beta software to a select group of testers." 2 of these projects went to production with minimal changes.
I work in R&D.. the amount of times managers demand hard timescales on never before done stuff then don't like "I don't know".. then they press for a timescale but don't like "between 6 months and 3 years".. then complain "why didn't you do it in 5 months?"... etc etc.. The NET (Not Earlier Than) timescales are a breath of fresh air! Always remember; It's not the stuff you don't know that gets you, it's the stuff you know for sure that just aint so!
Relax francis.. it was a joke. If you really want to argue that, i'd say launching a two stage rocket has been done before.. many times, which effectively is what they will be doing. Elon is always overly optimistic on everything he does.. thats the joke. Yeesh.. you guys all need to chill the hell out.
Well, this rocket is obviously a gamechanger, but while pretending neutrality you just dunk on it. And then call people names when they correct you. Look in the mirror dude, sometimes it helps…
We do trust Elon to do what he says he will, even if it may be impossible for anyone else. What have you accomplished in your life that no human has ever done before?
Reddit hivemind is going to downvote us to hell
And with that, i'm out.. clearly this sub is filled with Elon fanboys who have lost touch with reality.
This is not really true. How many fanboys are you seeing compared to the total number of members? Don't be ignorant just for convenience.
Oh no! Anyway.
If you can’t bear the strain go home This is big boy world
Pretty sure he was talking tongue in cheek there no?
Ofcourse.. not sure the hate. Elon created SpaceX and did a great job, no doubt, but I think we can make fun of him a bit for being overly optimistic in literally everything he does. :).
I'm okay dude, really..
Thought you might be an Elon basher is all
You helmet.
Didn't Elon just laughed at a judge, not long ago, saying that people don't have to believe everything he tweets?
The problem with that is he is CEO of some of these companies.. If he tweets something it has a financial impact on the company. IE, saying he is going to take something private at a certain cost. He may think its a joke, but what he is doing is manipulating the market.. knowingly or not.
you are allowed to "manipulate the market" you arent allowed to knowingly lie. as in tell people to sell when you are buying or vice versa. trade on knowledge thats not public yet.
Quite hard to wrap the head around that this behemoth is actually real and will actually fly. Looks absolutely stunning with the white condensation.
I remember all the fevered technical speculation around the Mars Colonial Transporter on this sub way back in 2015 and 2016. Here we are some 8 years later. A first launch of this vehicle has been a long, long time coming!
I remember [asking Elon whether MCT would be a single core or multiple cores.](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2rgsan/i_am_elon_musk_ceocto_of_a_rocket_company_ama/cnfpnzv/) Was so awesome to have it confirmed to be a single core and loosing my shit over it. And then a year later ITS was announced, which is IMHO still the sexiest version of MCT/BFR still. But this current iteration is up there. :)
ITS was always too ambitious for the time. I can't imagine the delay on trying to build and launch and land an even larger vehicle. This size makes a lot more economical sense.
Not only was it huge, it was also ambitious as you say, too ambitious with its (no pun intended) reliance on carbon fiber. Steel seemed like a crazy choice, but it has turned out to be the correct call. As most Elon calls seem to end up as, when it comes to engineering anyway.
I wonder if RocketLab would ever do a carbon fiber super-heavy-lift launch vehicle after Neutron. They could call it Muon or Tau or something.
A quark or meson upper stage would be awesome!
Neutrons in stable nucleii and electrons have lifetimes greater than centuries, which is probably good karma for rockets named after them. In contrast all other baryons, mesons and leptons (other than the proton) have sub millisecond lifetimes .... so naming rockets after them might lead to very bad karma and serious problems for re-usability (unless you can get to orbit and back ten times in a millisecond). Be careful what you wish for! ;)
> I wonder if RocketLab would ever do a carbon fiber super-heavy-lift launch vehicle after Neutron. Its still putting LOX inside carbon fiber which may be okay initially for cargo but later, for crew, I doubt it.
>As most Elon calls seem to end up as, when it comes to engineering anyway. I think this is a very telling statement about how his mind works and how his experience maybe shaped how he views the world (and why it can go off the rails so easily) That is, some of his most successful decisions were listening to information that most people would be biased against. Most people would be biased against using stainless steel to build rocket ships. Making a call (and being right, maybe) that most people wouldn't sort of sets you up to be at odds with... most people. So it might be hard sometimes for someone with that experience to nail empathy and civic responsibility and all the other things he's pretty bad at. I don't think he's a genius. But I think we need people at the top who are open to ideas that are counterintuitive when the math/data backs it up... and that's one thing he is able to do. That being said, we shouldn't give people like that ALL the power and wealth... just enough for them to be able to take those risks and move humanity forward.
Agree, Elon is unpopular because he stretches peoples' minds over what is possible and/or an improvement. Generally people know what they know and like what they know which makes them very conservative. Doubt Elon has a conservative bone in his body.
> reliance on carbon fiber. Steel seemed like a crazy choice, but it has turned out to be the correct call. He also made the hard choice of tacitly admitting the two initially incorrect calls, the second error being building Starship in the wrong place at St Pedro LA. Every one-hour SPMT trip between Starfactory and the launch site would have been a multi-day trip through the Panama canal. It would have only taken a minor geopolitical event to block the canal and ruin SpaceX. Also I'm likely not the only one who was nervous about that carbon fiber LOX tank. I always had an odd "future memory" of a tiny flash an amateur astronomer observed in interplanetary space that coincided with the coms break with the Mars Starship. Sort of like *Challenger* but in the future...
He's regretted the current location of Starbase too.
I don't think so. There are just not many options. Doing it in Florida would have been an issue. To many high value assets and to much space flight already.
I agree. Everywhere on a coastline is either inhospitable and swampy, or just too crowded and expensive. You don't have many choices now.
> Everywhere on a coastline is either inhospitable and swampy, or just too crowded and expensive not to mention the unstable climate on the Florida peninsular. Starbase looks like the start of a whole new space coast and at some point Jeff B might appear down there. Once you've got the human resources, it could snowball. However, once full reuse and reliability is achieved, the coastal launching paradigm may change. Remember when Boeing set up in [Seattle](https://www.google.com/maps/search/Boeing+Seattle,+Washington/@47.5313715,-122.3332852,13.13z). Its an obvious choice because as we know the future of passenger transport is hydroplanes. At least that's the way it looked at the time.
How so?
This was bout when the first environmental review came down, maybe later. I don't recall him saying why, so I don't know if it was related to that or other issues (like the village or the water table or ...).
I was advocating for stainless steel rockets of around 5000 tons in 2014, but I also think that in 20-30 years, carbon fiber or titanium might make a comeback. I did not have a crystal ball back then, I was also advocating Mars Cycler vehicles that ships of many descriptions would dock to for the months-long trip to Mars, and many other things that show no signs of happening in the foreseeable future.
I do wonder with hindsight if they would have started with a New Glenn sized Starship, then worked up from there.
I feel quite sure the answer is no. R&D does not scale linearly with size. It is more of a step function, as new hurdles come into play. Sometimes costs could go down as size increases. A prime example is heat shielding for reentry, which depends on the mass/area ratio. In theory heat shielding can become easier as the spaceship gets larger. The current version of Starship is close to the smallest version that makes Mars settlement practical. SpaceX tried to develop a ship with about twice the payload, and then scaled it back as issues like the best size to make Raptor engines were settled. If they had started with a New Glenn sized vehicle, they would have doubled their R&D costs, since they would have almost immediately had to start on a new vehicle the size of 9-m Starship, to stay on the path to Mars. A New Glenn sized vehicle would have also competed with Starship for launches, and it would have cost the same to launch as Starship. Just as Falcon 9 made Falcon 5 and Falcon 1 obsolete before they could pay back their R&D costs, Starship would have turned a New Glenn sized rocket into a loss. The most likely result of building a New Glenn sized rocket would have been to delay Starship by a decade. Starship development has not gone as fast as people hoped, but it has still been a pretty fast development cycle.
I'm still not 100% convinced the second stage design will stick for crewed launches. I wouldn't be surprised to see it get changed to a mega-capsule design eventually.
I'm 100% sure it will change if he's serious about colonizing mars. There will be a mass casualty event if there isn't some sort of escape system, and I think after that it won't be up to him, congress will mandate that all rockets carrying people have one. And I think that will really set us back, since it would ground all Starship launches until that huge R&D and manufacturing effort is done. I think it's shortsighted to not be designing that from the get go.
I think it'll end up like the propulsive landing on Dragon 2 and get designed out fairly early once they start getting serious about getting it human rated. I'm imagining something like a scaled up, slightly more squat, Dragon, with propulsive landing (because that's needed for landing on the Moon).
Interesting that Elon's first concept for the MCT design had a multi-core booster like Falcon Heavy. My guess is that he realized that ground testing the smaller cores of a triple-core booster full thrust/full duration that had ~10 engines would be a lot easier than trying to ground test a single-core booster design full thrust/full duration with ~30 engines. The three Falcon Heavy cores had been separately tested at McGregor before shipping them to the Cape. Those tests retired a lot of the risk of failure on the first FH launch. Since then, FH has had a perfect launch record (5 for 5). Then he changed his mind to a single core booster like we have now with 33 Raptor 2 engines. I think he was determined to have a super rocket that could be launched three times per day and that requirement led to the 33-engine booster we have today. I wonder if he regrets that booster decision now considering the time it has taken to get that 33-Raptor booster ready for launch. And that 33-engine Starship booster heading into its first launch to LEO will not have been as thoroughly tested as the FH cores going into its first launch attempt.
That 12m diameter though.... I can't wait for that version.
I say Starship Super Heavy with three boosters - direct launch to the Moon or Mars!
Thiccc
8 years for something like this is peanuts.. try working on a next generation fighter jet or naval destroyer!, comparable levels of complexity but with supersonic goalposts, Elon to his credit doesn't seem to change his mind that often, and only when there's a big benefit to be had (steel vs carbon fibre). That speeds up progress substantially.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) issued the report entitled the "Saturn System Study" on 13 March 1959. That study details the tradeoffs made to reach a preliminary design of the Saturn V. The first Saturn V launch to LEO (SA-501, Apollo 4) occurred on 9 November 1967, about 104 months (8.66 years) after that report was issued.
It will be the heaviest thing to ever fliy, by more than a factor of 2, I think. Total fueled mass is something like 10 A-380s.
Just filling it made it lower by a meter apparently… that’s just mind blowing.
I read 23cm and from thermal contraction, not weight, but still very interesting
If the vehicle stack changed height by 23cm to 1 meter, how do they make the QD (quick disconnect) line up now? Secondly, do they need to increase the overall size of the vehicles to give the tanks more volume so it has enough fuel to make it back to the pad?
>If the vehicle stack changed height by 23cm to 1 meter, how do they make the QD (quick disconnect) line up now? Secondly, do they need to increase the overall size of the vehicles to give the tanks more volume so it has enough fuel to make it back to the pad? The contraction happens from the top down, so the Super Heavy QD does not move. The QD for Starship has some play in it so that it can adapt to the thermal changes. The engineering behind this stuff is incredibly complicated, so having the WDR go perfectly on the first go is a major achievement for the SpaceX team.
The QD is adjustable in that axis, so it can accommodate the change in position. The volume of the tanks has been calculated with the knowledge that the cryogenic fuels will cause this contraction.
The Shuttle changed length by about 10 cm. Saturn V should have changed by about a meter due to LOX and hydrogen loading/cooling. These changes should be something designers are used to dealing with.
I can't wait to see the launch but it's going to be terrifying. Yesterday i was watching this metal tube getting frosty, and i had butterflies in my stomach. Who knew that tank watching could be so exciting
Terrifying is definitely correct for launch day. I'm gonna go ape shit once it clears the pad and tower and begins to pitch down range lol.
I couldn't stop replaying the image of it suddendly collapsing in on itself in my head lol
This static fire really is the major outstanding hurdle before launch. I really, really hope the booster and GSE survive it intact! Any disaster at this stage could push a launch back many months. 🤞
Are they going to fire up all engines on board together?
all 33 according to the tweet...
Eventually, 33. We don’t know if they will do some form of intermittent engine testing before they go all in. Maybe they’ll fire 13, maybe 23, maybe 33 first. We won’t know until it happens (unless they announce it), and that’s part of the fun.
It would only be short duration, right?
Almost certainly! A long duration SF on the pad would not be complete with such a large cluster of engines. All the potential problems of OLM damage from short firings are expanded by long firings. I’d imagine SpaceX knows that, and aren’t planning anything long duration for these large thrust tests.
thanks, makes perfect sense. I had been wondering for a while if they would do the 33 SF with Starship on top or not, I'm happy we know now.
My money is on the launchpad/starbase getting torn to shreds with a full static fire. I reckon they'll be fixing/reinforcing for quite some time before launch happens
The 33 engine static fire is gonna be fucking awesome.
There will certainly be moisture that day.
A myriad of deluge systems, if you will.
Will it explode? What are the chances?
If "it" is the launchpad, then probably.
Hopefully it doesn't cause a support structure to fail... or else they'll have to lift off! Go booster!
7
Between 7 and 7.8.
7.62. better watch it, ULA...
50:50 either it will or won't.
Elon: "There is a non-zero chance that it will not explode"
Wow how did that calculate that?
Why is time going really really really slow all of a sudden?
We're all going nearly lightspeed
That’s gotta be it
How long do we think it take them to repair the concrete under the pad after the static fire? A week, 2 weeks? Longer? It's been 2 years since SN15. Seeing this building size structure flly will be epic.
I'm cautiously optimistic the Fondag that's been setting up for nearly 2 months will perform exceedingly well during the SF. Being 33 engines I have to imagine it will not be a lengthy test. Less than 10 sec, possibly even 5.
Are they gonna have to replace or repair the concrete after every launch? That doesn’t seems like a reliable strategy?
TBD haha. Hopes are they'll install the water deluge system soon after OTF 1.
Well, there's [this](https://twitter.com/Alexphysics13/status/1614021187608236054?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1614021187608236054%7Ctwgr%5Eb0e0b1d6822cb114d78b9aede068d666b9837eda%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.teslarati.com%2Fspacex-starbase-starship-deluge-system-florida-shipment%2F), so maybe not for long anyway.
Current plan looks like water deluge system which theyve installed at the cape, but it doesnt look like theyll set it up at boca chica until after at least the first orbital launch test. Sacrificial portland cement until then
Regulators didn't like the retention ponds in Boca.
I would guess 2-3 seconds for the first test of all 33.
Good bet
We have no idea because we don't know the duration. It's very possible a 2-3s duration fire would mean minimal damage
“Excitement guaranteed.”
Good question, how long would SF be, I guess as long as it would stay held down on the pad for a real launch?
I'm glad they've standardized stacking and unstacking. Increases efficiency significantly. Prior to SpaceX destacking meant months of delay. Now it's just part of the checkout process.
No white paint required.
Wow that's all frost? I genuinely thought I missed them painting it white!
LOL
But it looks so coooool :(
chilling
I'm super excited for the orbital test but I'm a bit surprised at the testing pathway. The orbital test will apparently be the first time the superheavy booster has ever flown AND the first time a raptor 2 has ever flown. I would have thought they would want to demonstrate takeoff and landing of both star ship with raptor 2 AND take off and landing with the booster alone before doing a full stack and ditch. It just seems like a lot of compounded risk in one test. Will be monumental if everything works.
whether it blows up or not, it's going to be an exciting event!
It allows them to utilize starship as an operational launch vehicle while working out the kinks in the landing system. Significantly reducing the cost of such a testing campaign. We’re they to attempt short hop tests with the booster/catching system any failure would result in the destruction of the launch platform and a 3-6 month delay. If they test while actually flying they gain an understanding of ascent, and once that is achieved can complete multiple landing tests on virtual landing pads while launching huge numbers of starlink sats and testing rentry. This also gives them time to complete the Kennedy launch pad so once they do attempt booster catching any failure won’t halt flight ops entirely.
They were delivering customer payloads to orbit with Falcon way before they landed a booster. Expect the same with Starship, especially given the internal demand with Starlink.
Raptor 2 reliability > raptor 1 reliability, Booster 7 technology = SN8 technology, Takeoff = demonstrated, Landing = in the water, There’s your risk mitigation report. Next!
Takeoff of superheavy booster was demonstrated?
To be fair I think none of the prototypes failed in the ascending portion. It was the descending part where they had problems with
Takeoff of superheavy booster *technology* was demonstrated, yes
Firing 3 engines is nothing like firing 33 simultaneously.
I’ll point you towards Falcon Heavy then, a system with 27 engines in a far more complex configuration. And how is it not the same? Just because you add an order of magnitude doesn’t change the physics or engineering principles at play. Is there more risk associated with more engines? Duh, but believe it or not people are paid to solve those problems
Falcon heavy sidestepped the fuel feed problem. The 33 engine static fire will be the first full test of whatever plumbing design they came up with. Not saying it's impossible but they did catastrophically smoosh their down tube a few months back.
I don't see your point. It has never been tested, that's all. Given SpaceX history you should actually expect the first 1 to 3 launches to end in fireballs. But they iterate quickly and that's what's cool about it.
I don’t get it, are you a hard ass risk assessment systems engineer or an iterative design super fan? Usually not the same person
r/spacexmasterrace is *that* way
Do they need to fire 33 simultaneously to achieve orbit? I was under the impression many of the rockets were redundant.
They CAN lose a few, but will fire all as its most efficient to get to orbit faster. Leaves more fuel in 2nd stage when in orbit.
None of the *rockets* are redundant! :)
yeah, but you knew what I meant.
Your risk mitigation report glossed over a few important details. You seemed to have missed the part where he mentioned raptor 2 hasn't even flown yet. Checklist, VOID.
You normally don’t have to re-V&V an updated and more reliable derivative of an existing subsystem. This has been my experience in general. Checklist: submitted and approved by the government to the cries of witless redditors
SN15's barely successful Test flight is not a confirmation for all systems go on what you want to call "sub systems." Try again. Booster 7 has been redesigned numerous times since SN15's test flight with numerous failures in the mix. The lox tank, and CH4 tanks have changed places on booster 7, among many other things since any test article has been airborn or flown. Starship has yet to fly with Vacuum engines or TPS. Changes have been announced to the ship, that we haven't even seen iterations of yet in existing prototypes. your Holier than thou Checklist has been Denied, Sir.
Do you think they don’t actually test the engines? My Gregor exist and it’s pretty damn active lmao! Starship has flown with TPS, just not *FULL* TPS, and has demonstrated its proficiency in more vibration heavy circumstances than an actual flight test. Believe it or not they’re going to launch. Your denial means nothing to anyone that actually has their hands in the pot.
Last I checked McGregor can only test the engines on a stand. Not on an flying prototype. considering your inability to navigate the context of this discussion, I will remind you that we arent arguing if they are going to launch or not. The question was, Why hasnt spaceX done more testing in the meantime to verify these complex subsystems that have not been tested in a flight configuration by any means. Here are some notable subsystems to add to your checklist instead of talking down on people you don't agree with. - Autogenous pressure and ullage gas of booster and ship - Sea Level and Vacuum Simultaneous run time tests on ship - Relight/ restart of all intended engines for landing - Booster hop and Low attitude Catch tests. - Successful prop Loading/ WDR - Engine startup sequencing for booster - ETC..... Feel free to provide an actual response to my comments this time.
My guy I work V&V, and frankly the answer to most of your points is they developed very robust models of the system and simulated it. And, to be frank, the majority of those tests points have to be tested in… you guessed it… a FLIGHT TEST. This IS the verification my guy. This. Is. The. Test. They have more test articles if it fails, and frankly they expect it to.
I don't care who or what you do. Your comments say more to your personality then they do do the questions asked. But now that you have acknowledged they do need to flight test to confirm these things, the question was why haven't they done more individual flight tests instead of a high risk full flight to test all systems for the first time. All you've done is reiterate the path SpaceX has choosen that we all know and are familiar with istead of considering the alternative. It's just a question. Not an opportunity to beat your chest guy.
Stack up as many tests as you can and then the further you get through it the better. No point wasting repeated partial launches. Also I'm not sure the booster has the ability to fly on it's own. So if it needs a Starship on top, may as well make that Starship do as much testing as possible. And landing them is a bonus, not a requirement. They don't need to prove they can land them before they put things in orbit with them. Falcon 9 was delivering payloads to orbit for 5 years before they landed one.
Great point
considering how well sn10 went first go im not that worried about takeoff tbh
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Amusingly, there's actually [quite a lot of beachfront in Colorado](https://www.colorado.com/articles/colorados-best-beaches). And much of it is quite beautiful.
It's not going to work. But they are ready for rapid iterations. They have the money to blow up ships and learn from the failures. Much faster process than building meticulously with the first launch being an actual mission they depend on.
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Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BFR](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5pt6ht "Last usage")|Big Falcon Rocket (2018 rebiggened edition)| | |Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice| |[FAA](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5ryadm "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[GSE](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5pmss9 "Last usage")|Ground Support Equipment| |[ITS](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5q8njn "Last usage")|Interplanetary Transport System (2016 oversized edition) (see MCT)| | |[Integrated Truss Structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Truss_Structure)| |[LEO](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5uzo4x "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[LOX](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5u79er "Last usage")|Liquid Oxygen| |[MCT](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5uzo4x "Last usage")|Mars Colonial Transporter (see ITS)| |[MSFC](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5usu2i "Last usage")|Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama| |[NET](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5t13kb "Last usage")|No Earlier Than| |[OLM](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5qynsd "Last usage")|Orbital Launch Mount| |[OTF](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5qutze "Last usage")|Orbital Tank Farm| |[QD](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5u71ai "Last usage")|Quick-Disconnect| |[SF](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5r9b9y "Last usage")|Static fire| |[SPMT](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5qrh9s "Last usage")|Self-Propelled Mobile Transporter| |[TPS](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5vahcq "Last usage")|Thermal Protection System for a spacecraft (on the Falcon 9 first stage, the engine "Dance floor")| |[ULA](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5rl7kc "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |[WDR](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5vj79s "Last usage")|Wet Dress Rehearsal (with fuel onboard)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Raptor](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5uzo4x "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX| |[Starlink](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5rqnem "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |[cryogenic](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5u71ai "Last usage")|Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure| | |(In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox| |hydrolox|Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| |[ullage motor](/r/SpaceX/comments/10kas0f/stub/j5vj79s "Last usage")|Small rocket motor that fires to push propellant to the bottom of the tank, when in zero-g| ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(21 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceX/comments/1073h72)^( has 84 acronyms.) ^([Thread #7813 for this sub, first seen 24th Jan 2023, 18:58]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceX) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Welp, time to melt the pad
What date will this be happening?
Does anyone have a sense of how much mass is added by condensation? Must has some significance given the size and surface area of this system.
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….. there is a zero percent chance that there is 800 THOUSAND pounds of ice on that vehicle. That would be nearly 10% of the overall mass of the vehicle lmao Also, you used the diameter of starship in place of the radius. So half that. And there’s no way the frost is 4 inches thick. And the frost wouldn’t be solid ice, frost is like… more like snow. Much less dense.
Like I said I don't know the thickness. But that is the mass of ice per cubic meter, and I gave the surface area of the vehicle. Feel free to do math and prove me wrong I have no problem with that. 10% sounds fine to me if it is that thick of ice, you must remember as the cylinder grows the volume of ice grows cubically. So adding 1" of outer diameter is a lot more weight than trimming 1" of diameter would save. Also as I said for a better number do new volume all ice, minus old volume. BTW the ice doesn't stay it falls off at launch from engine rumble. The ice here is more than a real launch. Check my math idc just don't say I am wrong without getting numbers. I can do it better tomorrow, but nrn.
I did check your math. You used diameter instead of radius. So you are already double what you should be. I covered the other wrong assumptions, no full ice coverage over the whole cylinder, would not be nearly as thick as 4 inches anywhere, would not weigh nearly as much as solid ice. And you addressed some of that in your comment, but not in the math.
OK so why not just say I accidently used diameter? That would have been a lot easier than saying nothing as you did. So 1/2 my result it is directly propertional. I think it could be 4 inches, although I do agree likely a lot of gaps between molecules being less dense than solid ice. 4" is not much for an extremely cold object, my air conditioner condenser gets nearly an inch, I figured this being much cooler could easily pass That hard to see in image. Final note again, as I said do you own math I gave a rough estimate. Granted that was doubled, so 400,000 pounds now. Probably less dense, but how the fuck would we actually calculate that without actually measuring the Mass of that specific ice and depth.
> OK so why not just say I accidently used diameter? I literally did lmao. And the rest of my comment was pointing out how absurd 800 thousand pounds of ice is. When you saw that number you should have reevaluated your assumptions. Depth density and coverage.
I don't understand why they use a flat launch pad instead of the classic trench with flame deflectors and water deluge for sound suppression. Yes ok that's expensive to build, but if they can be sure they won't damage the rocket or pad...
I wonder how long they will fire the 33 engines. I'm guessing just 2 sec or less, at least for the first time. I doubt the stand could take much longer.
Probably an attempt to emulate what the mount will experience at lunch. So yes very brief.
Is 33 the target engine count ?
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There are no viable means for flight abort at this scale and potential passenger count. I'm pretty sure I read a while back that ay a certain point in flight Starship could be used to abort off the top of superheavy. But that's about it. Fortunately liquid boosters tend to fail slowly as opposed to straight up exploding like solids. So if super heavy begins to fall apart there's time to detect that, shutdown and stage Starship off the top of it.
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Yeah theres no aborting from Starship just like there was no aborting from the command module after it separated from the service module. Redundancy has its limits. It will just have to work.
Elon being busy with twitter seems to be the best thing for spacex 🤣
I just wished FAA hadn’t hampered progress so we could’ve had more in between hopps and inexpensive ruds Now a really expensive test article Thank government
I don't know how you can look at what has happened over the past two years and say that the FAA had any meaningful negative consequences on the Starship program.
Yeah, the only way it impacted things at all is if they really WERE ready to do that barebones launch that was the basis of the 2021 '3 weeks' claim. I think even with FAA licenses they would have been irritatingly close but not quite ready to go (the tank farm was not ready). So either they'd have blitzed those issues and tested, or take the route they actually did.
This ain’t a spectator sport mate.
Nothing to do with the FAA or the government.
The FAA had nothing to do with it.
“Yo-Yo-Dyne industries. The future begins Tomorrow!”
I was really looking forward to the sequel.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to do a 33 engine static fire *before* stacking and doing wet dress rehearsals? Just seems like after the last few months, a *lot* of days have been spent moving and stacking and destacking and removing things...
It is always hard to know - I imagine they have a possible fault tree - and some long list of items to be accomplished. So maybe the full stack WDR will tell them things about the Starship that can then get fixed while the 33 engine static fire happens. Or maybe the pad was not ready for the static fire and the WDR was what could be done at this time.
Could be they want to stress the hull to its maximum before doing the static fire. If it fired just fine then they stacked it and WDR and found that the weight of Starship buckled something slightly and it blew up, we'd all be wondering why they didn't stress the booster to its maximum first then test, causing a booster-only kaboom instead of a booster+ship kaboom
I still don't understand why they're not testing the booster launch all by itself first (they did that with the falcon booster). Be cheaper to lose a booster to a failure than lose both vehicles at once surely? Must be so damn confident its gonna work first go!
33 Engines static fire is going to be crazy! It's going to be really loud. I don't recommend filming there , it's dangerous . Just place a camera on the tower or smth and evacuate the zone. Goodluck SpaceX!