ThatGuyWithALongUsername

...actually wait, no, that would be F9R. So this is actually Grasshopper Episode III: The Revenge of the Wind.

Basically Grasshopper 2: The Revenge

Next launch is for DARPA.

I'm sure it depends on the vehicle, but that is kinda surprising.

Liftoff!

I misread, sorry. But I do remember at least 1 VTVL STS concept.

What's the point when there's no payload? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X?wprov=sfla1 They actually got to the Grasshopper stage before this got canceled.

...not sure why nobody has said anything, but the launch was a success. All payloads deployed like 13 hours ago.

3rd stage ignition. EDIT: Ninja'd, woops.

The music is a bit odd. 2nd stage cut-off

Eh, it's not as bad as ICON... yet.

Wait, how would that be pressurized?

I wish- hard to go into reasons why without invoking politics, but, long story short, the US government is currently shut down. This means that most government staff are not on duty and are not getting paid unless it is "essential," which evidently does not cover NASA's PR team.

Mostly for backup / maybe higher TWR because they can. Seriously, they need to have engine out capability here.

*Untitled Space Craft. Which, by the way, would be a great name for one of the BFR's. Courtesy of Google, although I know it's been posted here before:

Wait What (EDIT: Didn't see @Mad Rocket Scientist's post, but can't seem to figure out how to add quotes to existing posts) As cool as this is, I don't think that's gonna happen. But the Starhopper is basically running on a 1:1 Elon time to regular time scale, so there's a CHANCE I might be proven wrong. That alone is seriously exciting. Besides, with a regular 1:2 Elon time, this thing would probably be testing early next year, which is STILL crazy.

This just in: No, Super Heavy won't still be CF. It's stainless too.

Feb. 6, 2018. But yeah, he's mentioned this idea before briefly. It's insane, but... what else would you expect? Wait, since the BFR has no abort system... could a modernized version of this actually make sense for it? I don't know if there's enough space for a bunch of these, but maybe.Perhaps it could, I don't know, double as a bed somehow and jettison out the window?

There, I edited the render a few posts upthread together. Ignore the part where I tried to use photoshop's spot healing tool on the SH fin or the lazy regular paintbrush on the side of the Starship that was accidentally deleted when I tried ochange the background. Nobody said I was good at this EDIT: WAIT NVM HE ALREADY DID THIS

I can swear I've had that exact same experience with similar plastic fittings, lol.

Heck yes it is! Chances are, we are now less than a decade away from a manned mission to Mars! The first flight of humanity's first true successful interplanetary "spaceship" could be only a couple years away, or sooner (depending on how you define that)! This is it, folks. This hopper may not seem like much, and it might not even make much sense, but it exists. It shows that they are serious about this. We're entering the home stretch now, people! What follows may be in history books! I should clarify that this optimism is cautious- there's also a good chance that this will fail somewhere. But the fact that they are even taking this expensive risk at all is crazy. Even if it fails, this could generate enough hype about the idea that some other Mars concept would happen. After all, it was never really a question of if we would ever go to Mars, but when. On a less serious note, the super heavy doesn't look like a lightsaber to me, it looks like a thermos:

It would indeed be very cool, but I'm too optimistic about the future of proper orbital spaceflight to do this, lol. If I ever end up with enough money to do this, I'll probably wait a decade or so for orbital flights to be the same cost. If not, I'd definitely "settle" for this. Unless Virgin is cheaper or something. They have always been incredibly quiet about this kind of thing (in contrast to New Glenn's main competitor, let's be honest here). I remember once they did a factory tour for media that included suspiciously placed black drapes blocking off half the place. I'm sure we'll see it eventually, at least when they get to their first NG test flight.

"Starcrane" just doesn't sound right...

Have a semi-relevant blog post and shameless plug, courtesy of yours truly: https://missioncontrolblog.metazai.com/2019/01/04/im-a-bit-behind/ (First third or so is list of notable 2018 space things)

Gah, you're right, timezones- actually, now it's 3 days here too. Doesn't make it any less amazing, though.