The Space Thread - Launches, Events, Live Streams, Governments, Corporations, drama in Spaaaaaaaaaaaace

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What makes this another great thing, is that a friend I know, who never even cared or understood space, was the first to message me as the landing happened, before I had even seen it.
 
mindlessobserver said:
Flight 13 of Starship is scheduled for "sometime" in June. But what they intend to do with it hasn't been announced yet.
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They applied for with the FCC for flight 12 and 13 at the same time, the application was nearly identical except for one single line.

Flight 12:
"Application includes a sub-orbital first stage booster and a second stage."

Flight 13:
"Application includes a sub-orbital first stage booster and an orbital second stage."

So their plans are definitely for an Orbital second stage in flight 13. The second stage performed almost as good as you could expect, so I would say they might still push for it. The Raptor relight is the only experiment that was skipped, but they still were able to light them as expected on the landing burn off of the header tanks. I believe the header tank design is the same as V2, and that's a flight proven system already.

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mlanguishi said:
BTW that is from 11, 7 months ago. I knew something was off with the overly orange stains. I wonder if they're going to release that level on 12 later.

And this is so goofy from Nicki


View attachment 9054506
dgeu3eoq-gOXha1z.mp4
You're rich enough to afford high quality in ear modern electronic plugs that you can talk with, they're only a 3 hundred,
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You know what, this is so goofy I think Nikki may actually care about this stuff.
 
ConsentAccidentVictimNo98 said:
Gotta love at least getting the tiles somewhat right, even after 12 test flights. Despite the Shuttle getting back safely (albeit after some problems) on their first flight.
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The shuttle was outrageously expensive with no non-human early tests. And it was still a meat grinder over time.

It's a matter of test test test expensive like Shuttle/SLS and put humans on quick, which works, or test over iterations and perfect it that way. There's ups and downs to both I think.

Challenger just should not have happened. It was a management problem and minor o-ring design issue. Columbia exposed some serious issues with a side payload that had eco-friendly (another political issue) problems of that time of dumping large (redesigned coating of the fuel tank) enviro-friendly blocks into the orbiter.

The shuttle even pre Challenger just was ahead of its time. But it taught a lot, and I think it was probably the best move if they didn't go Apollo expansion in the 70s.
 
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mlanguishi said:
The shuttle was outrageously expensive with no non-human early tests. And it was still a meat grinder over time.

It's a matter of test test test expensive like Shuttle/SLS and put humans on quick, which works, or test over interactions and perfect it that way. There's ups and downs to both I think.
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A lot of the Space Shuttle fallibilities were known as it flew. The engineers didn't want Challenger to fly, they knew the weather issues. People within NASA knew about the Columbia disaster before it happened, but there wasn't another Shuttle available to launch. Hence the birth of the STS-300 procedure such that a crew could be launched. My main point being is that the Shuttle had abort procedures all across its launch points. Sure, some would likely not have worked (such as the split-s 1779682266172.png

But at least they existed.

What exists with Starship? People going, as they have, that the Starship was meant to ignite upon ocean contact? At least with the Shuttle, there were profiles allowing the crew to evacuate the shuttle over water. Like, the Shuttle is looking safer than Starship and that is wild.

But hey, gotta love the SpaceX IPO being used to make a lot of people rich from pension funds. Because the millionaires and billionaires are the REAL HEROES! - Gosh, I hate the current state of spaceflight. I want cool space exploration shit making the front page. Not "ohhh look, SpaceX is doing something dumb with their latest Starlink launch vehicle". Give me a billion dollar program news. Oh wait, the "pro space" Trump administration defunded that for the purpose of human space. Yikes. Human Space is usually at least 10 times more expensive and goes know how much more risky. Enjoy living in caves future astronauts. Orion's future is fucked without Gateway.
 
ConsentAccidentVictimNo98 said:
What exists with Starship? People going, as they have, that the Starship was meant to ignite upon ocean contact? At least with the Shuttle, there were profiles allowing the crew to evacuate the shuttle over water. Like, the Shuttle is looking safer than Starship and that is wild.
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Ok, you're onto that bandwagon that the Starship that lands on spot in the Ocean isn't supposed to fall over and explode wagon? C'mon man, that's what it's gonna do by design. Don't start that crap, dumb.

But yeah, there's no real abort at all with Starship which would be a problem, just like the shuttle and I'm sure there will be lost crews on it. Just like there's no abort on your plane flight either.

BTW, everyone knew that Shuttle return to landing abort was very unlikely to work. Gemini had escape pods, which they pretty much knew had a very limited timeframe of working. SLS, Dragon, and RIP New Shepperd, and Russian/Chinese old styles do have proper launch aborts.

And Orion isn't some massive expensive thing lol. It's a capsule, and it's a great one. It has good utility. Can get 4 up, to something else. I thought Gateway was a good idea for different spot landings, but if HLS with BO/SpaceX works it's just not a very good setup for a base. A lot of it is being reused as a nuclear reactor propulsion setup by Jared which seems nice. Land a few, build a small base, and if we need a station around the moon later it can come.
 
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mlanguishi said:
Ok, you're onto that bandwagon that the Starship that lands on spot in the Ocean isn't supposed to fall over and explode wagon? C'mon man, that's what it's gonna do by design. Don't start that crap, dumb.

But yeah, there's no real abort at all with Starship which would be a problem, just like the shuttle and I'm sure there will be lost crews on it. Just like there's no abort on your plane flight either.
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What I'm stating is that if the fuel is meant to explode in ignition, is that is severely limits abort procedures. Hell with it looking like that the termination system didn't activate with the Super Heavy booster following its failed ignition to a selected gulf location it just seems wrong. The entire Starship program is a program built off of hype going all the way back to its announcement over 20 years ago. I can pull all sorts of rhetorical tricks, I love rhetoric, but the fact of the matter is that this is a fucked up program primarily meant to serve Starlink (SpaceX's main profit aim, launching stuff to orbit won't serve its main IPO aim).

Something like Starlink is good for orbital infrastructure, but SpaceX's other investment areas looked fuck. Most of the AI infrastructure is rented, and there's a lot needed for AI deatacentres and other stuff like that.

I want large scale deep space stuff, but 1: People are not the way forward, and 2: Starship is promised to be the everything ship and I don't trust it. At least SLS is specialized (well was, it's basically a eunuch now thanks to Musk's administrator cancelling Gateway and EUS, as fucked as they may be).
 
ConsentAccidentVictimNo98 said:
What I'm stating is that if the fuel is meant to explode in ignition, is that is severely limits abort procedures
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You expect methalox not to explode when tipped over 90 degrees? You think a crew would be able to abort and survive at that level, in a best case scenario? That's not a good criticism of Starship.
ConsentAccidentVictimNo98 said:
. Hell with it looking like that the termination system didn't activate with the Super Heavy booster following its failed ignition to a selected gulf location it just seems wrong.
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Did you watch it? The booster mostsly corrected and had sloshing problems most likely and the engines failed. This is a software/timing issue, not a system issue. The heat shield and all this is getting a lot better. Don't get hooked up with instant gratification.

ConsentAccidentVictimNo98 said:
Something like Starlink is good for orbital infrastructure, but SpaceX's other investment areas looked fuck. Most of the AI infrastructure is rented, and there's a lot needed for AI deatacentres and other stuff like that.

I want large scale deep space stuff, but 1: People are not the way forward, and 2: Starship is promised to be the everything ship and I don't trust it. At least SLS is specialized (well was, it's basically a eunuch now thanks to Musk's administrator cancelling Gateway and EUS, as fucked as they may be).
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AI blah blah bad, ok. Yes, we need to move forward in space. I think Jared knows what he's doing and the optimistic timelines aren't panning out and it'll be in the middle.

To me the fallout of if Gateway was a good idea or not shouldn't be some argument really. I said I liked the idea, but there's other options that might be better.

I'll add this, and you're not going to like it. I think we've reached the end of what probes can do, or towards it. We need humans or even AI bots, not just probes anymore. I want humans to go.
 
mlanguishi said:
Did you watch it? The booster mostsly corrected and had sloshing problems most likely and the engines failed. This is a software/timing issue, not a system issue. The heat shield and all this is getting a lot better. Don't get hooked up with instant gratification.
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This is still a range problem that needs correcting. Perhaps I am most harsh than others, oh well it's tough love. The fact is that even in the case of a potential urban environment (unlikely) the fact is Starship is still pushing for point to point which brings up a ton of difficulties on this front. Again, perhaps I am too akin to tough love but this cannot be forgotten. Starship will face a ton of difficulties on this front. As well as super heavy. Ever so slightly of course could be a nighmare scenario for those in the flight path.
 
ConsentAccidentVictimNo98 said:
This is still a range problem that needs correcting. Perhaps I am most harsh than others, oh well it's tough love. The fact is that even in the case of a potential urban environment (unlikely) the fact is Starship is still pushing for point to point which brings up a ton of difficulties on this front. Again, perhaps I am too akin to tough love but this cannot be forgotten. Starship will face a ton of difficulties on this front. As well as super heavy. Ever so slightly of course could be a nighmare scenario for those in the flight path.
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No problem with that, Elon is promising a lot and needs to have a lot of results. So far it's been mixed. We just had an incredible SLS/Artemis 2 mission, so I'm an optimist. I said way back other threads I'm sure that Starship is a bit of a boondoggle, for now. But I think it's absolutely improving and will eventually be at some point what it needs to be for moon and eventually Mars.

There's multiple programs going on with nuclear and classical rocketry going on that will end up with the goals over time. The odds now are better by far than those 70s and 80s versions of Apollo descendent programs on Mars.

I remember Reagan's idea of National Aero Space Plane program, and thinking this was it. Then the X-33 going nowhere. We're in better shape now for sure, SSTO planes were considered the ultimate LEO plan. And they might've been, but in the end reusable boosters like Falcon and so on ended up being more viable.
 
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I'm not reading all that back and forth shite, it's too late and I'm going to bed but I can promise you that the Starship being flown now is an entirely different beast for what the Human-rated Starship will look like or operate like. There WILL be abort or escape options built in to the life support and command areas of the ship that aren't there now, and the engine/fuel mix in this test design craft is deliberately made to explode when it falls over in the ocean so China dosen't send a few 'fishing trawlers' (with destroyer escort and air cover) over to the carcass of a cutting-edge Western design superheavy!
 
Green Man said:
Mercury
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Okay damn way worse than I remembered. I forgot to count getting to orbit previously, and this time it looked like around 6900 dV for ejection and the same amount again for injection at Real Solar System scale.
Plus 9300 m/s for getting to orbit and ~3k for landing (which I didn't attempt because it looked boring anyway).
So like 26,100 m/s one-way or 43,000 for a return. Insane just to visit The Moon Again Only Hot.

But I grabbed a Venus lander program at the same time. That was hairy. Turns out I brought exactly enough RCS to get the heat shield stable under me and the one time I figured it out I came down on the night side.
So I reloaded and cheated in some extra nitrous oxide and fuck I'm glad I did, look at the job they did on those cloud layers (ignore the top layer glitching out as I 5x physics warp through the second descent):

Not pictured: the surface. Because you have to do that yourselves. Not just because I forgot that RTGs obviously generate their own heat when I read the stats, so the one I brought melted, which the parachute was attached to, and I only survived because the chute snagged on an antenna for a while. And then by the time it did come free terminal velocity was so low thanks to the air thickness that lithobreaking didn't destroy anything important.
 
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