The thrust of curiosity that leads men to try to go where no one has gone before. (The Space thread)

[Dicknose]

I think SpaceX is doing ok on its reputation, its been successful and looks like continuing and doing more.
Elon might be a wanker, but his businesses typically get shit done. Not sure how good he is to work for (... got a mate who started at Tesla last week!)

[Crazed_Insanity]

A genuine wanker should not be able to get any shit done. Or if shit is getting done way better than its peers, perhaps only a competitor will call him wanker because he’s jealous?

Anyway, if I think somebody is a wanker, I’d never want to work for him. No matter how much shit is getting done. I hope your friend doesn’t really think he’s a wanker. :p

[Godson]

Tesla employees work their asses off.

[Tom Servo]

Elon might be a wanker, but his businesses typically get shit done.

Sure, as long as you limit it to Space X and arguably Tesla.

[Dicknose]

Sure, as long as you limit it to Space X and arguably Tesla.

Well I was thinking those 2. Both have been game changers. Not exactly new tech, but managed improvements to the tech and bring it to production volume that is impressive.

[Tom Servo]

Yeah, just saying that people seem to forget a lot of the other businesses, like Boring company, Hyperloop, X.com, and arguably Twitter.

[Crazed_Insanity]

People also tend to forget no entrepreneur had 100% success rate. Even Tesla and SpaceX were very very close to bankruptcy just like Twitter is now.

Elon was a definitely not a saint, but his companies are far from Enron, Theranos, FTX, Bernie Madoff fund. There is a huge difference between Elon’s less successful companies and those fraudulent ones that deserves prison sentences!

You don’t have to like Elon on a personal level, but not sure if we can convict him as a lousy entrepreneur by his less successful ventures. Plus, timing is also important. We really don’t know how things will play out in the future. There were never shortages of people doubting the future of Tesla cars and SpaceX rockets back then…

[Dicknose]

Yeah, just saying that people seem to forget a lot of the other businesses, like Boring company, Hyperloop, X.com, and arguably Twitter.

Sure he has some not so successful!
But Tesla and SpaceX have both been so dominant in their fields. Yeah he took over Tesla, but it did become a big player under his watch.

I think SpaceX is interesting. Its not just playing around with suborbital flights. Its gone big. Both in capabilities, new ideas and as a business.
Will be interesting to see if he does launch people on a private mission. That would be a big change, from space being for superpower nations to a private company taking the lead.

[Tom Servo]

No doubt, I'm just saying that the statement "his businesses generally get shit done" applies to < 50% of his businesses.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Think of it this way, would you consider Thomas Edison to be a lousy inventor because his failures outnumbered his successes?

[sandydandy]

Think of it this way, would you consider Thomas Edison to be a lousy inventor because his failures outnumbered his successes? Or Henry Ford. Apparently he named the Model T after the 20th letter in the alphabet because it was his 20th business venture, (his prior 19 were failures).

[Tom Servo]

Let's try to spoiler tag that nonsense. I can only see the line you quoted, but Billi is making a *completely separate argument* and thinks he's found a "gotcha".

[Crazed_Insanity]

Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I think Edison was a giant asshole too! Maybe he also stole a lot of inventions that are not his…but doesn’t erase the fact that he had been very influential and most probably won’t see him to be a lousy inventor.

Regardless of how likeable Elon might or might not be, it’s kinda hard to conclude that he’s a lousy entrepreneur based on the wealth he has generated.

Did he really own a lot of slaves or hired a bunch of forced labors? Did he swindled money from people like Enron or FTX? Did he lie about his break thru products like theranos?

Anyway, back to topic. I hope we can have commercial space travel within my lifetime… base on my own lousy work, I don’t think I can get the job done. The commercial crew capsule I worked on still hasn’t flown a person to space yet! However, glad there’s Elon.

[dodint]

My understanding of Musk and Space X is that he's basically a hype guy that isn't allowed near anything coming close to making important decisions.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Where did you get that understanding? Do you have evidences to back that up?

Are you sure your understanding isn’t based on some sort of left wing conspiracy?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Lots of smart competent people working together to make SpaceX possible and these smart people chose to work for an idiot they would not allow to make real decisions but they’re willing to make him very very rich. Why?

[Dicknose]

My understanding of Musk and Space X is that he's basically a hype guy that isn't allowed near anything coming close to making important decisions.
Hmm - Id heard the opposite, that he actually understood the tech and was far more than just a front guy.

[Tom Servo]

If we base his "code review" on pictures of a standard architecture diagram at Twitter, I'd say we can assume he *thinks* he understands the tech but that Dunning-Kruger is in full effect.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Computer code definitely is still important on space ships. Boeing Crew capsule totally fucked itself due to software issues.

Anyway, at least SpaceX coders are good enough to provide safe travels to lower orbit multiple times. We can assum SpaceX boss is a douchbag, but do we really need to believe that he’s also an idiot?

[JSGeneral]

Today I learned about two people I've never heard of but should have known:

I read that this day marks the 50th anniversary of astronauts' last lunar landing, by Apollo 17's Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on Dec. 11, 1972. They were the eleventh and twelfth people to ever set foot on the moon. 50 years later they are still the last ones to do so.

[Crazed_Insanity]

1st moon landing peaked everyone's interests... and then people quickly lost interests and government redirecting its interest to the Vietnam War. That's why the program got cancelled early and thanks to that, we actually have 3 rockets leftover for museums to look at! I saw one at Alabama. Apollo is really quite a sight along with its powerful F-1 engines... which is like the pyramids, we don't know how to build them anymore... It's really mind boggling how they did it 50 years ago!

Artemis 1 has nothing fancy... mostly designed and built off of old shuttle hardware. One thing that worries me is that as we deplete these old shuttle parts, then what? Apollo wasn't sustainable. Artemis 1 is cool and we've proven it to work, but again, not very sustainable though.

So I think ultimately sustainable space travel will fall on the shoulders of Elon Musk/SpaceX. I do hope Twitter won't end up being the reason that stopped Elon's ultimate dream from coming true.

If only we spent all that money on wars towards space exploration for the past 50 years, surely we'd have a moon base by now?

[Dicknose]

Gene Cernan "last man on the moon" was also amongst the first to fly to the moon, he was on Apollo 10. He was even in Snoopy (lunar module) when they got to within a few kms (checks - 15km) of the surface.

Still think Apollo 10 was overkill, either land it, or skip the mission.

[Dicknose]

If only we spent all that money on wars towards space exploration for the past 50 years, surely we'd have a moon base by now?

We would have a Mars base and be exploring more of the solar system.
By "we" I mean if the worlds military budget was redirected. Heck we could do all that space stuff with just the loose change.

[Godson]

Yuuuuuuup

But because governments and religions can't play nice....

*Looks around like John Travolta*

[Crazed_Insanity]

On com'on, Apollo 8 astronauts read verses from the Book of Genesis as they orbit around the moon on Xmas eve 1968.

This proves that US government and religion could play nice and achieve great things!

The only thing that doesn't know how to play nice is humanity. Fortunately we're not entirely hopeless. At least we're venturing out into space again...

[Rare White Ape]

Yuuuuuuup

But because governments and religions can't play nice....

*Looks around like John Travolta*

It's all be postponed. Right now it's more important to PROSECUTE FAUCI than it is to explore space.

[Godson]

Meh.

The people who echo that have little understanding on what they are actually saying. Even less understanding on how medicine actually works.

[Tom Servo]

I just saw someone on Twitter claiming that Fauci used Twitter to try to control the Covid narrative. I don't think I ever saw him tweet, but pretty sure Trump was a prolific tweeter....

[Godson]

Further support for my previous statement.

These fuckers are as myopic as an amoeba.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Guys, this isn’t the political thread. Should I talk about space Jesus here? :D

[FaultyMario]

If we base his "code review" on pictures of a standard architecture diagram at Twitter, I'd say we can assume he *thinks* he understands the tech but that Dunning-Kruger is in full effect.

I might need some help on cudacore-ing my R-Studio. Can I count on you, bruh?

[JSGeneral]

Another Apollo astronaut has slipped the surly bonds of earth one last time. Walt Cunningham from Apollo 7.

nasa-apollo-astronaut-walt-cunningham-died (https://www.npr.org/2023/01/03/517135016/nasa-apollo-astronaut-walt-cunningham-died)

[Crazed_Insanity]

Sad to lose another one of them, but I think those astronauts lived a full life. At least if I were any one of them, whether if I died young or died of old age after a fall, I think I'd still be very happy with my life!

Anyway, thanks for that link, it was a great read. Sometimes I kinda feel bad for those earlier astronauts who also have done lots of work and even sacrificed their lives, but only Armstrong end up taking all the credit! :p

It's also interesting that Cunningham is a climate change denier... or he just doesn't believe warming is human caused I guess. It's interesting both camps believe scientific facts are on their side... and their oppositions are wrong with their ideologies... I personally don't think anyone knows with 100% certainty which is absolutely true, but there's absolutely nothing wrong to try to be cleaner anyways, right?

Suffice to say that these heroic astronauts are not perfect and also not always right. Most of them don't believe a private company like SpaceX would work either.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Warp speed is probably possible according to physicist...

https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a42593019/traveling-faster-than-speed-of-light/

Too bad pop mech wants money for me to read it... Anyone here has subscription? The title is really so super exciting, but I'm just too cheap to shell out money to read an article... :p

[Dicknose]

Its mostly about new mathematical models, where you swap the dimensions from 3 space + 1 time to 3 time + 1 space.
Its hoped to be a way to bridge Quantum + General Relativity.

Doesn't tell you anything about how to go faster than light in the 3 space + 1 time world!

[Crazed_Insanity]

Interesting, but I don’t think I’m comprehending… :p

Using math to try to figure/sort things out is a good 1st step I guess.

[Dicknose]

Playing with extra dimensions became a popular pastime of String theory and other models. Some ended up with like 23 dimensions!
This at least keeps it to a sensible number of dimensions, just swaps the time and space around.

Haven't seen this "swap dimensions" suggestion before. And I dont know enough to comment on what it would mean physically. Would the time dimensions still "flow" in one direction? Or is that a property of being the single dimension of that type, so the "space-like dimension would flow forwards"

[Crazed_Insanity]

Yeah, please figure it out 1st and then hopefully you can help us understand better! :p

[FaultyMario]

so, a couple of serious journos are reporting that the Pentagon might probably inform about the possibility of some branch of the US government possessing information that might be related to alien contact.

[Leon]

That sounds pretty definitive ;-)

[retsmah]

My understanding of Musk and Space X is that he's basically a hype guy that isn't allowed near anything coming close to making important decisions.

I'm a little late here, but my experience working there was that he did understand at least broadly what was going on and did make decisions.

I was just an engineer working on the Falcon 9 first stage, but on occasion provided info to my boss that he would take to a meeting with Elon to get a decision on how we were going to move forward. There would have been other senior engineers there discussing things, but it did seem like on some of the bigger decisions Elon was ultimately the one they had to convince.

I'm not a huge Elon fan as can be seen in some other posts I've made, but at least at the time it did seem like he more or less did his CEO job.

[Yw-slayer]

so, a couple of serious journos are reporting that the Pentagon might probably inform about the possibility of some branch of the US government possessing information that might be related to alien contact.

OMG ALIENZZZZ

[Crazed_Insanity]

I'm a little late here, but my experience working there was that he did understand at least broadly what was going on and did make decisions.

I was just an engineer working on the Falcon 9 first stage, but on occasion provided info to my boss that he would take to a meeting with Elon to get a decision on how we were going to move forward. There would have been other senior engineers there discussing things, but it did seem like on some of the bigger decisions Elon was ultimately the one they had to convince.

I'm not a huge Elon fan as can be seen in some other posts I've made, but at least at the time it did seem like he more or less did his CEO job.

Sounds like what I was expecting.

Elon may be annoying, it’s amazing some actually believe he is stupid. There’s no way Tesla and SpaceX can succeed just by having the dumbass boss sleeping on the factory floor.

Of course, I doubt he’s a super genius either. He has gotten things wrong plenty of times. However, he’d usually correct his mistakes and still be ahead of his competitors.

I’m not a super fan since I don’t drive Teslas nor fly SpaceX and I don’t even tweet! I just don’t understand why so many are on his case. Even the SEC. Imagine if SEC were more concerned with FTX, that probably would be better if for lots of investors…

Musk is an odd ball, but I really think his net contribution to society is positive.

[Crazed_Insanity]

https://spacenews.com/relativity-launches-first-terran-1/

3D printed rocket by relativity space failed to reach orbit. However, there has been many rocket companies, but very few actually even reached the launch pad though. Space is definitely hard to reach. Relativity Space will probably get there eventually. Give MR2 something to cheer about! ;)

[retsmah]

I guess this isn't a super new story, but I just recently saw it: Amazon gets FCC approval for a 3236 satellite constellation (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/02/fcc-approves-amazons-satellite-broadband-plan-over-spacexs-objections/) that would compete with SpaceX's starlink service.

I'm not really sure how I should feel about private companies launching these pretty massive satellite constellations. It will be interesting to see how the services grow, at current it seems like the Starlink service is in some areas already getting overloaded, in addition to being expensive, but I think they've also launched a pretty small portion of the constellation so far.

This is probably a space detail that doesn't really interest most people, but it does for me reinforce my guess that SpaceX is overvalued at it's current $137 billion valuation. I think to get close to that value they would probably need to capture most if not all of the possible satellite internet business, based on my very limited attempt to analyze the company's value!

[retsmah]

The relativity launch seems pretty good, it made it further than SpaceX's first launch, about as far as their third launch, not as far as the second. SpaceX made it to orbit on their 4th launch.

Will be interesting to see how a lot of the new space startups develop, due to turnover at SpaceX places like Relativity have lots of people that already have the experience of building a successful space startup.

[MR2 Fan]

https://spacenews.com/relativity-launches-first-terran-1/

3D printed rocket by relativity space failed to reach orbit. However, there has been many rocket companies, but very few actually even reached the launch pad though. Space is definitely hard to reach. Relativity Space will probably get there eventually. Give MR2 something to cheer about! ;)

yep yep, been following along a bit

[Crazed_Insanity]

I think it's clear SpaceX and even Tesla are way over valued by investors in a traditional sense. Just as why are tech stocks are way over valued compared to traditional companies? There's really no easy way to determine the value of something. If an investor thinks it's worth it at that value, so be it. If you think it's way too expensive, then don't buy it. That's market.

To me, what's more important is that the company must not be a bogus ponzi scheme, like Theranos or FTX...

Musk, the racist dumbass, broke a super difficult barrier for private rockets and EVs. Once that barrier's broken, it will definitely be easier for others to follow along. However, as demonstrated by Jeff Bezos, having plenty of money is not really sufficient to catch up to Musk whether in space nor for EVs. I personally don't like Jeff as much. However, I do welcome having more rocket companies. I do not want Elon to monopolize the market in the end..., but I am grateful for him for breaking such difficult barriers... twice!

Anyway, regarding those constellation of satellites, I really hate that too. Starlink is definitely useful, but I really hate the night sky pollution such system created…

[retsmah]

The reason I care about SpaceX's valuation is just that I have some stock from when I worked there. I have a real first world problem, the price of that stock has increased a lot since I got it, so I have kind of an unreasonable amount of my net worth in one company. I've started selling some of it, I haven't decided how much I want to sell exactly... with it being not publicly traded I can't unload it very fast so I've got some time to decide!

[Crazed_Insanity]

If I were you, I’d just sell half and enjoy the profit now and save the other half for retirement!

However, nowadays, inflation is so high… if I’m not sure what to buy or invest in, I’d probably not sell at all.

Anyway, it’s a good problem to have i guess! :p

[JSGeneral]

Animation of the past 13 years of SpaceX launches--condensed into one minute (https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1638946761141108739)

[Crazed_Insanity]

Wow! That’s a pretty cool illustration! :up:

[retsmah]

Animation of the past 13 years of SpaceX launches--condensed into one minute (https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1638946761141108739)

I started around March 2013, I was on the team working getting grid fins designed, manufactured and installed, the last big step in landing a Falcon 9. I started right at the beginning of that project. They were installed on the rocket that launched on Jan 2014. About 3 seconds in the video, was a very long 3 seconds for me! Video doesn't really show it, but the rocket that launches Dec. 2015 was the first to successfully land, with a couple before that getting very close.

Back at that time we were telling vendors to get ready for like 25/launches per year in 2015, which at the time seemed really unreasonable. And I guess it was, I don't think that many launches happened until 2020. But 61 in 2022 is a crazy cadence.

I don't have any insider knowledge of what's going on anymore, would be interesting to see how the reuse is working. Wikipedia claims that back in 2020 there were 26 launches which only required 45 new engines for the first stage. I don't know if that's correct but if it is that would mean they're getting about 5 flights out of an engine before it has to be replaced. If the engines don't have to be removed from the boosters between replacements that would be a really nice change from having to build a new booster and build/integrate 9 new engines for each flight!

[retsmah]

SpaceX's Starship is cleared for launch by the FAA (https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/04/green-light-go-spacex-receives-a-launch-license-from-the-faa-for-starship/). I suspect it won't be going off this early, but the first launch window is Monday at 7am central.

Should be pretty spectacular once it fires up, regardless of how successful it is!

[Crazed_Insanity]

Finally, no argument from me! ;)

[Rare White Ape]

I actually had no idea that SpaceX was this far down the road with Starship.

Good luck to them.

[retsmah]

First Starship launch went off today (https://www.youtube.com/live/-1wcilQ58hI?feature=share&t=2689), blew up about 4 minutes in.

It'll be interesting to see what SpaceX says about the failure, it seems like the second stage didn't separate, and then the first stage went ahead with it's flip, which resulted in the whole rocket just kind of spinning out of control. It seems like it's currently being described as losing control before stage separation.

Edit: I added more information in a next post, it did lose control before stage separation it looks like.

[Crazed_Insanity]

What a magnificent launch!

You can also see 5 of them engines that failed to ignite, but initially people were thinking have so many little engines is too complicated, but I suppose having such redundancies are good things? Having 5 rocket failures won't stop you from getting into orbit!

It's difficult to imagine how they could have a separation failure. Usually rockets would just blowup, but starship was doing somersaults, flipping multiple times in the air like his boss just tweeting around... I suppose it could be separation failure, but I get the feeling that they're just messing around? The payload was probably a dud and they probably won't be able to control it once sent to orbit so they just blew it up? Starship is obviously a very solid vehicle in a structural sense. Surely most rockets would've folded in half doing somersaults like that...

[retsmah]

Reading the latest information (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_orbital_test_flight) it does look like the rocket just lost control before main engine cutoff. I'm not sure where the info on that wikipedia link is coming from, but it says the rocket lost 8 engines by the time it lost control. At 1:21 into the launch it's clearly down five engines, and it does appear (to me) to lose at least two more at 2:00 and 2:10.

When I was initially watching the launch I mistook whatever is going on at 2:00 and 2:10 as being main engine cutoff, but that doesn't actually come until 2:52 into the flight.

The flight plan was for second stage to separate, do a 6 and a half minute burn, and re-enter the atmosphere at about 1 hour 17 minutes after almost one full earth orbit.

[Kchrpm]

The way they cheered when it exploded made it seem like it was supposed to happen, but they were cheering loudly and a lot throughout the whole thing.

[Crazed_Insanity]

It's like cheering for awesome fireworks display! ;)

It would've been amazing if Starship could complete its proposed flight plan on 1st try. However, we probably don't want that so that Elon inflates his ego bigger! :p

Anyway, whatever failed, I think the test launch probably offered SpaceX engineers lots of learned lessons.

SLS has gone around the moon ahead of SpaceX, but I wonder if SpaceX would end up winning the race to be the 1st to land astronauts on the moon. So awesome to be able to have an internal space race like this... hope we won't have any escalation of wars to derail our space exploration...

[retsmah]

I think there's the initial disappointment you hear of it losing control and blowing up. I'd interpret the cheering after it blows to mean that this was, overall, probably a pretty successful launch as far as SpaceX is concerned. I don't know anything about what's going on there now, but I wouldn't be too surprised if internally the big concern was that a problem early in the flight could destroy the launch tower, or something similar.

I've chatted about the launch with a couple people this morning, everyone I've talked to seems very skeptical of SpaceX's claim that it could be considered a successful test when the rocket blew up. I think that most likely is the case though!

It'll be interesting to see what comes next from this launch. On the launch livestream it was showing three engines out 15 seconds into the flight, it seems kind of surprising that nothing was detected as being wrong with those engines before the rocket was released.

[retsmah]

Here's a video 1100 ft (335 m) away from the launch tower (https://twitter.com/LabPadre/status/1649053476276797440), the minivan takes a pretty big hit! This is from a spot for remote cameras and equipment so no people would have been allowed anywhere near this close during the launch, but I'm not sure that much debris was expected. It seems like there is a pretty large crater (https://twitter.com/LabPadre/status/1649062784167030785/photo/1) under the launch pad that wasn't there before.

Compared to the NASA facilities at Cape Canaveral (https://www.positivelyosceola.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/spacex-948x640.jpg) the Starship launch site kinda looks like they're just launching it out of a gravel parking lot (https://i.natgeofe.com/n/2fc6b389-d710-464d-80d3-c6dc82ba1247/51889658574_591ec5a135_k_square.jpg)!

[Rare White Ape]

I’m sure you’ve noticed, that much of the Starship program is deliberately conducted in less-than-ideal conditions because that’s what it’ll be facing if it ever gets to Mars. I don’t think these are even built in a clean room. The initial short hop test vehicles were assembled outdoors!

As for this test flight, a lot of people misunderstood the primary goal. That’s mostly SpaceX’s fault. It published information about the mission design but not as much about its goals.

It’s more like what many players do in Kerbal: get a crazy idea, build something that *might* work, hope it doesn’t instantly blow up. If it blows up, make adjustments and try again. Except this is real, and it’s messy and expensive. Wealthy people are already booking moon flybys. I say get them up there as soon as possible.

[retsmah]

The Starship program does feel much scrappier than Falcon 9 from a distance. The Falcon 9 first and second stages aren't built in clean rooms, but they are at least built inside buildings! The primary structure welds are all friction stir welds done by machines/robots as well, I've only seen Starship being welded by hand. I guess that's partially a materials difference, Falcon 9 is an aluminum-lithium alloy, Starship is stainless steel.

Starship production is already quite fast too. When I started at SpaceX the production schedule had something like 9 months between Falcon 9 flights 13 and 14, and it ended up being more like 11 months. I think we could potentially see the second Starship flight in 2-3 months, unless the failure investigation of this flight turns into some major redesigns.

[JoshInKC]

Wealthy people are already booking moon flybys. I say get them up there as soon as possible.
And leave them?
Let's leave them.

[Tom Servo]

They can fly by the moon on their way to the sun

[Leon]

The disappointing bit about the Starship blowing up, is that Elon wasn't on it. Ah well.

[Rare White Ape]

As usual, Scott Manley has the most cromulent post-mortem.


https://youtu.be/w8q24QLXixo

[retsmah]

Wow the launch pad really took a beating! Would have been a really interesting failure if the rocket ripped the launch pad off the ground and took off with it attached.

I'm very skeptical of the whole no infrastructure on mars thing, I'm pretty sure they're going to have to first land/build some infrastructure on Mars before they can really start transporting lots of mass there. Even landing on smooth concrete you have to add a lot of mass to your spacecraft in landing legs, or have more propellant to allow for a longer, smoother landing.

There was a time when it was claimed Dragon 2 was going to do propulsive landings on land like Falcon 9, but in the end it wasn't possible to make it work with the mass budget available for landing.

My guess is this being a Mars rocket is still quite far down the road though. The Moon stuff will bring in a decent bit of revenue, but I think the less sexy reality of Starship is it's needed to be able to make Starlink work. The latest Falcon 9 Starlink launch was only like 21 satellites vs. the earlier 50-something as they are getting bigger, and the current satellites are still much smaller than the desired future starlink satellite.

[Rare White Ape]

To be fair Mars has much lower gravity than Earth, so the mass issue won’t matter as much. It’s the high speed entry that’ll be the problem, as the small spacecraft we send there currently can use parachutes in the thin atmosphere. Lots of fuel will be needed to slow it down without the aid of strong aerobraking.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Apollo and Artemis (SLS) both caused significant damage to their launch pads too.

Maybe sea launch? To help cool things down with water? Also as mars travel become more frequent, this should also help lowering the sea level? :p

[JoshInKC]

Are we bringing back the old Sea Dragon concept? I'm in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6YJ5oIcT4g
Clip from For All Mankind - A great AppleTV tv show that not enough people watch

[Crazed_Insanity]

Yeah, that’s another one magnificent rocket concept… but after thinking more about it, if we start launching this way, whales and other similar types of marine lives may end up going deaf, huh?

[Crazed_Insanity]

FAA has grounded Elno’s starship because it’s too dangerous!

Interesting that Boeing was allowed to certify 737max by themselves with minimal oversight, but they need to be so strict with this unmanned experimental vehicle. Pendulum swinging too much to the other side?

Anyway, probably just government flexing muscle at Elno. Wonder if Elon will start building rockets in China or Russia now.

[Dicknose]

Could launch them from French Guiana with ESA.
Or come here and do them in Australia... we have a rudimentary launch facility that could use a major upgrade and some business. Also closer to the equator for a little bonus velocity.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Not sure if French and Aussies will embrace Elno with opened arms though.

We hate billionaire Elno so much now that we’d rather see companies like Tesla and SpaceX fail.

Geographically, yeah, closer to the equator the better. Russia is probably the worst choice of all! ;)

[Drachen596]

Faa gave them a list of 63 things that need fixed before they'll approve the launch.

Not like they banned Space X entirely.

[Rare White Ape]

Is that really what we are talking about here? The clandestine actions of a flight safety agency?

Billi can you at least keep your nonsense takes restricted to the politics thread?

[JSGeneral]

FAA has grounded Elno’s starship because it’s too dangerous!

Interesting that Boeing was allowed to certify 737max by themselves with minimal oversight, but they need to be so strict with this unmanned experimental vehicle. Pendulum swinging too much to the other side?


Haven't you tried to identify as a rocket scientist to us in the past, and yet this incredibly inaccurate information is what you posit as some fact? Get real. Wherever you are getting your information, check your sources. (Including the matter between your ears.) I'm going to assume the best possibility--that you are simply lazy, and not intentionally spreading misinformation--even though you DID spread misinformation and ended up having others respond to your remarks assuming that what you said was true--so I will do some research for you:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/09/faa-says-spacex-has-more-to-do-before-starship-can-fly-again/

If someone were to only read that title, they might be misinformed too. However actually reading it and you can arrive to these conclusions:

SpaceX experiments by doing. They know they will have accidents and plan accordingly. Rocket science is hard.
Part of this plan includes making a report of what went wrong and what to correct.
SpaceX provided the FAA with the list of 63 items for improvement. The FAA did NOT make the list.
Basically, the news this week is that the FAA officially approved the list of corrections.
But SpaceX hasn't been just waiting around. Since April, they've proactively already implemented many fixes on their list.
The FAA will let SpaceX know if they've covered enough of the 63 items to perform the next test launch (note: NOT all of the 63 have to be implemented for the next test to be approved)
That next test launch is waiting now and still intended to launch later this month. This test plan still has contingencies for failure. SpaceX plans on failures--so they can be prepared and learn from them.
None of this is a surprise for the FAA nor SpaceX. They have weekly briefings. Both organizations are on the same page.
UPDATE AS OF TODAY AS I WROTE THIS. 57 items on their list have already been addressed.




Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable.

Look, I know I'm being harsh, but in this case, it's due. This is a thread about space and science. Between the time where you posted a conspiracy theory about whales going deaf, and the above quote there have been some incredible achievements (and failures) in the field. Russia "landed" on the moon in a similar fashion as they did in 1969. India successfully landed a rover on the moon! We've exchanged more ISS crew via the Dragon. Hell, a civilian was able to finally organize an official photoshoot while riding in a U2 at the edge of space. So many wonderful and serious topics that could be covered.

In the spirit of positivity, I will torpedo my own post and finish with some jocularity.


Could launch them from French Guiana with ESA.
Or come here and do them in Australia... we have a rudimentary launch facility that could use a major upgrade and some business. Also closer to the equator for a little bonus velocity.

I'm afraid that can never be allowed to happen. Your country is filled with emus. If they ever got to outer-space and adapted, it would be a galactic war crime. I believe the prevention of space-emus is covered in the updated Space Force mission statement.

[Tom Servo]

Faa gave them a list of 63 things that need fixed before they'll approve the launch.

Not like they banned Space X entirely.

Is one of those to fix "their shit, already"?

[Crazed_Insanity]

I started no conspiracies guys. Grounding of starship is fact. Whether 60 or 50 corrective actions, it remains grounded.

I did wonder about somethings, but wondering shouldn’t be a crime.

You guys really believe FAA knows better than SpaceX regarding how they should fix their shit? This is not a commercial plane. Not even manned nor is it suppose to fly over populated areas. I just thought FAA is being overly careful grounding an experimental vehicle.

Anyway, forget about SpaceX for a moment. NASA also recently admitted that our Artemis rocket is unaffordable.

This double blow to our return to the moon dream is very annoying to me on a personal level. So maybe I’ve said some stuff that upset you guys, but anyway, not my intent. To be fair, if they defund Artemis(SLS), I can totally understand. (Portion of my paycheck comes from that) it’s supposed to be affordable by using off the shelf shuttle parts! However, things have dragged on and got expensive. There’s really not much to defend other than if we really want to get back there, we ought to push forward.

For an experimental launch that’s not spending taxpayer money nor is it endangering people, I really don’t understand what FAA is worried about.

[Dicknose]

I'm afraid that can never be allowed to happen. Your country is filled with emus. If they ever got to outer-space and adapted, it would be a galactic war crime. I believe the prevention of space-emus is covered in the updated Space Force mission statement.

Space spiders is where its at!
How big would they grow in 0 gravity!?!

[Crazed_Insanity]

SpaceX sure works fast. All corrective actions are done. FAA should clear it for launch now…

[retsmah]

SpaceX has always required FAA approval, and has always had a team of people working with FAA/NASA. There's nothing new about having a list of corrective actions after a rocket explodes, or even after it doesn't explode.

It's also an orbital rocket, while the highest risk area immediately downrange will be cleared of people it will eventually fly over land/uncleared ocean, and also poses a risk to other satellites in orbit. The FAA should have oversight of the launch.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Was not try to do away with regulations, just saying government regulators seemed to be extra careful with Elno. Similarly with SEC. SEC liked to pick on Tesla more than FTX. Had SEC spent the same level of effort on FTX, maybe that can save a lot of investors some money?

Hope FAA is really just doing it’s job and not trying to mess with SpaceX just because of Elno. We’ll know come October timeframe… starship should be cleared for launch then.

[Rare White Ape]

Maybe someone at SpaceX should offer kickbacks or bribes like Boeing did.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Yeah, when other foreign aviation agencies decided to ground 737max planes, FAA still had Boeing’s back! Wasn’t that nice?

[Rare White Ape]

I mean, I don’t see SpaceX conducting fraudulent activities. But that’s the FAA’s fault apparently.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Don’t really understand what you mean there.

[FaultyMario]

Comet Nishimura's brightness is scary AF.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Boeing’s Starliner’s launch got scrubbed 4minutes before scheduled lift off… how disappointing. :(

I guess if it’s Boeing, it just ain’t going?

China on the other hand has landed on the far side of the moon!

I wish the 2 nations could enter into more of a cooperation rather than enter into another Cold War…

[Crazed_Insanity]

Yeah! The Constantly Scrubbing Transport-100 has finally lifted off with crew and on its way to space station!!! :rawk:

[Crazed_Insanity]

Yes! Successfully docked with the ISS! Couldn't do that during previous unmanned test due to the wrong clock setting which caused wrong firings of the capsule... by the time we figured out it's doing the wrong maneuvers at the wrong time, it had already wasted too much fuel. Not having enough fuel, it basically just have to come back down and then get grounded for years... :p

Anyway, although SpaceX's Model 3 was cheaper and way ahead of schedule, relative to Boeing, at least Boeing's more expensive and extremely late Corolla finally did do its thing! Well, mission isn't over yet... so knock on wood that it won't pull a Max or blow out a door...

I think the only advantage Boeing's Starliner has over SpaceX's is that it can help change ISS's orbit with its engines... and it's also more reuseable because it can land on land. SpaceX's capsule was suppose to be able to land on land too just like their rockets, but regulations and technical challenges made it impractical... but anyways, I still kinda doubt NASA will buy anymore Corollas that's more expensive than a Model3... Unless due to political reasons, maybe Biden can now finally proclaim that Boeing has ushered in the era of commercial space travel? :p

Anyway, so nice to be able to shift my attention to something up in the heaven so that I can get a momentary break about all the crappy stuffs on the ground... Whatever the future holds, go space travel!!!

[Dicknose]

Yes good to see Boeing get there. Good to have 2 groups able to do ISS/LEO missions.

And SpaceX was successful with their 4th test flight, seem both booster and Starship survived re entry and ended with landing burns that got down to low speeds.

Big week

[Crazed_Insanity]

Man, I totally missed that historic launch from SpaceX! That is one amazing accomplishment! Giant week for space! :D

[Crazed_Insanity]

Boeing's CST-100 Starliner Capsule has delayed it's return multiple times and is still currently docked to the ISS. There are numerous reports saying Boeing is screwed and caused the astronauts to be stranded at the ISS! Recently I was able to dial in to an all hands meeting to hear from the program manager... At least program management is saying there's nothing majorly wrong, NASA still cleared the capsule to be able to return in an emergency condition. It's just that NASA wants to take the opportunity to study all the buggy issues. The helium leaks and thruster issues are all in what's called the Service Module, the cylindrical thing that attaches to the bottom of the capsule. During re-entry, it'd be jettisoned and never be seen again. So this is the only time they can take a look and check things out.

The capsule is rated to be able to be in space for 45 days. So if after a month and a half the capsule is still up there... then we'll know Boeing management was lying and we'll need SpaceX's help to get our astronauts back! ;)

So sad that in this day and age, we don't really know who to believe. Of course if Boeing had maintained it's reputation by doing a good job in the 1st place, none of this would happen...

Whoever's telling the truth, I just hope astronauts will be safe. Hopefully they sort out their various issues too.

Anyway, I think this is one of the reasons why I'm a huge admirer of Elon Musk! Imagine if there's no SpaceX... I don't think commercial space travel will ever be possible within our life time... Space travel is hard. Even if Elon Musk got to where he is due to his dad's emerald mine and did absolutely nothing, at least he assembled a great team of folks and they accomplished some amazing things!

[Rare White Ape]

Boeing's CST-100 Starliner Capsule has delayed it's return multiple times and is still currently docked to the ISS. There are numerous reports saying Boeing is screwed and caused the astronauts to be stranded at the ISS! Recently I was able to dial in to an all hands meeting to hear from the program manager... At least program management is saying there's nothing majorly wrong, NASA still cleared the capsule to be able to return in an emergency condition. It's just that NASA wants to take the opportunity to study all the buggy issues. The helium leaks and thruster issues are all in what's called the Service Module, the cylindrical thing that attaches to the bottom of the capsule. During re-entry, it'd be jettisoned and never be seen again. So this is the only time they can take a look and check things out.

Good level-headed info on the vehicle for once. Better than any news source can conjure up for clicks.

The rest of your post though... ehhh.

[Godson]

Interestingly enough, if Elon wasn't making these, we would be using either soyuz, or other options.

Space travel is hard, and I really appreciate your insight.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Given the collapse of the global cooperation-ism and war in Ukraine, ISS would probably be empty or taken over by the Russians by now without SpaceX? :p

Minus SpaceX and Boeing, I'm unaware of any other options besides having Russians ferrying the astronauts to space. It is kinda odd that China has done their own space programs all by themselves. There was never any wars... we worked together on virus research... why never in space? That I'm not sure. There may be trust issues?

Anyway, I'm not a journalist, so naturally I often times include my opinions in my posts. Just as I don't fully trusts media and not even Boeing management, you guys naturally don't have to fully trust me! :p

Time will tell who's telling the truth and who's lying. I'm only interested to know what I didn't know before... ;)

I do hope Boeing will be able get its act together and be able to safely and reliably transport people both in air and space in the future though.

[Rare White Ape]

Interestingly enough, if Elon wasn't making these, we would be using either soyuz, or other options.

After the Shuttle program was retired NASA sought the assistance of Roscosmos and sent astronauts on Soyuz flights for about 10 years.

Somehow, the two agencies are able to cooperate. It might be something to do with not focussing on political one-upmanship like many other areas of international affairs.

*scratches chin...*

[FaultyMario]

didn't both agencies start cooperating (more) in the wake of the Challenger disaster?

smart people would realize how dumb it would be to keep competing in an scenario that is cloth expensive and potentially catastrophic. And there's plenty of smart people on both sides.

[Godson]

I hadn't heard that before, but I wouldn't be surprised.

The Roscosmos also were in the process of building their own space shuttle project, but they cancelled it before it flew iirc.

[Rare White Ape]

It was called the Buran Program. They built quite a few of them, most of which were partially built and left in various states of assembly at the time of its cancellation. Wikipedia has quite a comprehensive list of the remaining artefacts.

The spaceplane itself looks almost identical to the US Space Shuttles, as it was built mostly from stolen information gathered by Russian spies. It’s slightly larger and has a few engineering improvements over the Space Shuttle.

Buran’s rocket stack was a much more powerful version of the SST stack, called Energia. It had four liquid fuel boosters strapped to the side instead of two solid fuel, and was designed with the ability to launch with a payload on top like a conventional rocket, so there were rocket engines on the bottom of the central tank section.

Meanwhile the SST stack’s central tank was only designed to feed fuel into the Shuttle’s three main engines before being discarded. For the Artemis program, the SST stack was re-engineered to run in a vertical configuration and now shares more similarities with Energia, but still keeps the two solid fuel boosters on the side.

[MR2 Fan]

I thought this was a pretty good video on the Buran


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSIdbKM4adk

[Crazed_Insanity]

Russian shuttle was definitely superior on paper, but given that it came later and at a wrong time, we’ll probably never know for sure…

However, Russians definitely had cheaper and more reliable way of transporting astronauts to space at the time.

The vision of weekly shuttle flights was simply impossible. Each turn around costs NASA more than a billion $! NASA did eventually reduced the cost down to 3/4 billion but that’s still not sustainable.

Reusability was deemed not very economically feasible.

Plan was to just go back to the Russian way of going to space using traditional disposable rockets… until Elno came and disrupted the aerospace industry. Everyone thought the guy must be an idiot from the Russians to the Apollo astronauts… even his friends tried to persuade him not to waste his money. But did he listen? Nope. The crazy idiot pushed forward…

[Godson]

Right, he spent government money ...

[Crazed_Insanity]

1st 4 flights were definitely not taxpayer money. SpaceX would’ve folded if 4th test flight failed to reach orbit. It’s only afterwards NASA began awarding SpaceX contracts.

I dont think NASA was confident enough to fund an unproven idiot right off the bat. SpaceX winning NASA over as one of its customers is inevitable, considering its success.

[Rare White Ape]

Musk had to invest almost his entire fortune into building SpaceX, but the first two flights were funded by DARPA. Prior to this NASA awarded a $396 million contract to SpaceX to develop crew and cargo resupply demonstrations to the ISS. After the first successful flight NASA gave SpaceX $1.6 billion.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Anyway, I think the point is he put up most of his emerald mine money and he could end up significantly poorer if test launches failed!

He bought into space in a similar fashion as he bought into Twitter. Every industry expert thought he’s crazy and were laughing at him.

Most aerospace companies get billions from NASA. Safe to say SpaceX has done a better, faster and cheaper job than it’s traditional competitors.

[Rare White Ape]

Anyway, Musk had a vision with SpaceX and filled a niche that didn't have many competitors, and took advantage of it through his ability to supply capital where nobody else was able. It worked out so now he is worth billions off the back of it!

He bought into Twitter in a different fashion he bought into SpaceX. By not innovating anything and trying to take a piece of the market that was already well served. Now everybody thinks he is crazy and is laughing at him.

Most social media companies get billions from advertising. Safe to say he's run Twitter into the ground and it's much cheaper than it's* traditional competitors.



*Unnecessary apostrophe added to maintain consistency between posts.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Launch business is expensive. Not only difficult to get into orbit, but also expensive to get in! Blue Origin is the only similarity age competitor but hasn’t reach orbit yet. Boeing and Lockheed were complaining that their launch business hasn’t been profitable so eventually they combined to form ULA. There had also been other rocket startups that failed. Point is this didn’t seem like an easy and profitable venture. NASA has always wanted to be better faster and cheaper, but the industry tend to push back saying that we could maybe only do 2 outta 3! However, Elon has definitely achieved better faster and cheaper for NASA.

I think compared to SpaceX’s timeline, X is still within those 4 initial launches. Meaning going out of business is still a real possibility. Also, it’s probably easier to start from scratch rather than Elon actually buying ULA? If Elon were trying to buy ULA and convert into reusable rockets, surely NASA would stop him back then! :p However, for social media platforms, maybe it’s worth it buying the existing user base rather than building from scratch? However, there will likely be significant headwinds trying to transform an existing org to something totally different as we've all witnessed with that acquisition...

Elon had a vision for PayPal and called it X back then but couldn’t get there due to one reason or another. So he’s trying again. Pretty sure free speech was not the only reason for buying into Twitter.

If X could truly become a digital bank and become an everything app like WeChat in China, surely it’ll be big! Ultimate goal is probably even doing away with the US dollars! However, I’m sure the central establishment bankers will do everything in their powers to stop him. Wouldn't be surprised to find Elon end up like Jeff Epstein someday. Not as a pedophile..., but finds that he ended up killing himself due to all the financial pressures... I'm sure you'll probably all cheer about that.

Fortunately I think SpaceX is now mature enough to go on without Elon.

Even if Tesla goes under now, at least the world has caught on to the EV revolution. I don't think we absolutely need Tesla. However, for now, I don't see anything comparable to SpaceX. All of Elon's ventures could fail, but I would not want SpaceX to fail.

However, if Elon could win the war against Central Bank, I'll definitely cheer about that.

[Rare White Ape]

This is a space thread.

The Elon fellatio thread is in another castle.

[Tom Servo]

Oh man, Central Bank talk? Are we about to get Rothschilds discourse here?

[Crazed_Insanity]

RWA, I think Elon has single handedly made commercial space travel possible within our lifetime. Without his emerald mine, I really don’t think we’ll ever live to see commercial space travel.

However, if we count Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, then I suppose we’ve already witnessed commercial ‘space’ travel?