RCgothic

The really ridiculous thing is that for the first half of its development SLS was primarily intended to ultimately send crew to Mars. HOW How do you possibly construct a crewed Mars architecture based around SLS and its flight rate. Sure they put out a few fancy graphics, but there's no hope in hell they were ever fuelling that mothership for departure. It's total fantasy. Nobody could have predicted SpaceX's success without perfect foresight, but with complete sincerity, SLS Block 1B should be expendable Superheavy with an expendable raptor upper stage and Orion stuck on top. SpaceX could throw together an expendable upper stage *far* faster than EUS will come to pass, and NASA can afford to expend the hardware.

Which doesn't work because you need multiple flights' worth of fuel and LH2 would all boil off between flights.

The absolute deal-breaker for me in SLS isn't ultimately the cost, or that it isn't big enough to do capsule and lander to the moon at once. It's flight rate. A high flight rate could cover all manner of sins. Can't co-manifest a lander? Send up another launch. Can't do Mars return without a mothership? Multiple-flight-construct that thing. SLS will never have the flight rate to work unsupported. And this must have been known from the start. I just... I just don't understand how such a crititical component of a crewed BLEO programme gets missed. It's almost like NASA have prat-falled their way into a viable lunar programme: "We'll make this booster and capsule to keep the senate happy, but we all know it's never going to acheive anything. Commercial launchers are coming along nicely though. Oh, wait... actually... Huh!"

I'm making a note here:

Eric Berger thinks SN9 may be ok to ship to the launch site Thurs, maybe:

Carried out attached to the stand, carried back in without it: i saw somewhere someone claiming it was the pillars that the stands sit on that collapsed, but I haven't seen photos yet.

SN9 structure is sound enough it can be lifted by the nose cone lift points.

Wow, ok: SpaceX is to significantly expand at Vandenberg. Just a month or so ago we thought they were winding down over there!

Good catch, that one's in the windbreak, not the highbay.

This series of French tweets has a good round up of pictures: "Assembly of SN10 and SN11 prototypes continues as one section prepares to recurve a large quantity of heat shield tiles." I'm quite psyched to see what a large collection of tiles looks like. The lunar starship mockup also has a curtain round the bottom, so I'm sure there's lots of work going on in there. "The SN9's fins were damaged following the incident with its mount, and will certainly be replaced if the prototype remains essentially in good condition. The nosecone of SN10 is in the LowBay and the domes are multiplying." The top fin is totalled. Hope the few dents in the cone don't matter much. Note that the stand (I *think* is the same stand from before - no damage?) is still being held down by chains and rolls of sheet metal. I... Don't think that's a great idea. "On the launch site, launchpad n ° 2 is ready to potentially host SN9. Work is resumed on the orbital launch pad and a new crane is being assembled." The damaged tent had been stripped. Guessing it needs all-new canvas at a minimum. The orbital launch pad seems to be getting wooden shutters. Good to see some progress, it's been a while.

Take a look at these pics. This doesn't look good. I wonder if they did some modifications to get the Raptors under there? Doesn't look like good practice at all.

More to the point, @tater, SN9 before it tipped: what was this all about. That... Does not look like good practice.

Ah, I got confused between Launcher One and Spaceship Two. Oops.

Abort. The Problem with plane-dropped rockets is you don't get to recover the rocket on an abort.

This fin looks a bit damaged to me: I think the edge had been caved in.

Too soon to say. Depends very much on how exactly it impacted.

This doesn't look good D: Yikes

Careful, some Twitter handles are not forum safe. Elon and Gwynne take a tour. Pieces on a truck already.

Good catch, editing out.

Edit: tweet scrubbed, email address visible. SN9SN9 rollout on Monday? Odd that an email would be leaked though.

haha

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I'm out of likes right now. I think it was supposed to be a 2-1 landing burn, but the 1 was having an engine-rich anomaly (not its fault, due to low tank pressure). The engine would not abort in this situation, it has to try and save the stage at the cost of its own internals. One of the ground tents is on fire. Landing site on fire.