CastleKSide

The only question in my mind is what kind of issues are they going to have at the interstage for reuse. There mot likely will be a not negligible mass penalty for additional shielding.

I wouldn't be surprised if in 2 years they start testing thier kickflip again. SpaceX is not as reluctant to make sweeping design changes as other companies are. Just look at how much evolution the F9 went thru. Block 5 is a very different beast than Block 1 or whatever the early versions were called. This reads to me like when they fed the launch test data into the computers and updated/re-validated the models risk profiles changed enough for them to go "let's try some other options." Whether they stick with I'd say is an open question. Frankly they have enough production capacity to test multiple versions at once, not to mention the test articles already built. They want this thing flying sooner rather than later and I'd bet we see them try everything they can

Perhaps by having continuous acceleration? Not sure but things tend to slow down in the time it takes to stage, which means you need to waste fuel speeding back up again. Im speculating from my KSP knowledge on this o if anyone knows more feel free to correct me.

The building requirements really help. Steel welded in open air rather than finely machined aluminum ala Atlas 5 or Vulcan. Or even if they had stuck with thier earlier plan of carbon fiber bodies. Would we have seen this kind of cadence if every piece was being rolled on a huge machine in California? Somehow I doubt it.

Kinda crazy how often F9 launches these days.

There was a great quote I came across many years ago in regards to this 'new space' environment we are living in. We made it to the moon on the pride of nations. We might just make it to mars on the ego of billionaires

This is a very interesting point and not something I had directly considered before. I will say tho I never considered Starship to truly be a 1 to 1 replacement of Falcon 9 and I don't see SpaceX considering it as such either. Large single vehicles work best in a high demand environment, on a scale we simply have not seen with space at this point. I'm thinking ocean cargo shipping rather than greyhound or even jumbo jets. SpaceX is betting on the future having that kind of demand environment, or at least the possibility of that. Time will tell if the bet is rewarded.

If it were, my car would be a very different kind of clean. Sounds fun to try tho, maybe pitch it to a youtuber.

Ok so i didnt finish my engineering degree but im not really sure that comparison holds up. Ur considering the system as a constant force. It would be one thing if the flow was consistent but it's decidedly not. The sonic loads resulting from the turbulent mixing of all the raptors are the problem. Water is also incompressable, air is not.. the average pressure may be around 3.71 megapascals but it's not going to be a constant thing. Again, repeated loading with each sound wave. My guess is ur dealing with a pneumatic jackhammer missing the metal tip more than a car wash.

2 things can be true at the same time. 1. A ton of stuff went wrong and resulted in not testing everything that could have been tested, and revealed issues they had not given enough attention to. 2. It went better than they expected. This is a move fast and break stuff company, with destructive real world testing firmly woven into thier engineering process. How many starships did they blow up? It's very possible they are planning to do the same with the full stack. Not saying your concern isn't justified esp about stage zero but I think worrying about transparency is a tad premature

How would there be lower structure weights with this insanity? I can see a simpler coupling but wouldn't that be outweighed by needed to strengthen the entire stack? I also like the term supersonic hammer throw. We really have gone full #humansarespaceorcs

I hope we one day get an explanation of why the pad damage happened, what was overlooked in the calculations

Perhaps some combination could be considered, like an upgraded version of a marine drydock. A giant pool that can be flooded with seawater but still connected to land based supply directly.

The decision not to build a full launchpad with flame diverter plus water deluge and instead go with something looking like piece of concrete modern art always seemed like the most insane out of all thier engineering decisions. Yes, even more than rocket catching Kung Fu panda chopsticks.

Ugh. I was so optimistic and now I'm just bitterly disappointed. Did not buy it, removed it from the wishlist and have been deliberately ignoring that it ever happened.