Beccab

Is anyone keeping count of the raptors on B4?

Yeah, no

StubHopper

They had a picnic table (with seats) and stuff that magically remained attached to the floor, so yes, it's a bad render. Bad graphics too for a 2021 promotional video

Or lifted by the catch arms as a test before B4

1: it wasn't. 2: we've already had this discussion a multitude of times, please

That's like saying that the shuttle was overthickened because it survived when it lost some tiles. Most of the times you don't crash if your car has a flat tire, but that doesn't mean you should go around without tires

If they were focused on that, sure they could. But this is amidst BE-4, BE-7, New Glenn, Jarvis, Blue Moon, HLS, Appendix N, LETS (with HLS and LETS at least requiring different landers entirely, we don't know about appendix N), New Shepard as well as building yet more ground infrastructure. This amount of work wouldn't be doable by SpaceX, let alone a notoriously mismanaged company with half the employees

After that is done and the aerocovers are mounted, the booster should be ready for flight barring testing (cryo and SF) For those who don't know, austin was one of the first people ever do start documenting the Boca Chica SpaceX development, together with Mary and Nomadd. I think he also was one of the original residents but don't quote me on that, I only know for sure that Mary is

Yeah, if it were a Sierra only project (of smaller scale) I'd be certain they can do it, if it were a Boeing only project then there would have been 0 chances to see it realized and if it were a BO only project that would be a "maybe, but long after the original timeline". With all three combined we'll have to wait and see

The main tanks are empty. There is a single, small spherical tank in the nose, the header tank, that provides fuel for landing

It's the usual manufacturing pathfinder, it was again in a video a few weeks ago

I assume crew dream chaser isn't flying anymore (or at least not in this decade), else boeing would have little reason to join this. Same for the BO biconic capsule Edit: I assume this again goes to confirm that Vulcan won't get crew rated without NASA money

Timeline looks quite doubtful unless they've been building the modules in secret already (which is possible), and I'm curious about when they will consider that to be operative. Still, very good to see LEO stations getting some love finally

As I said before in this thread STS-1 survived with 16 tiles completely missing and STS-27 with over 700 damaged tiles and a critical one loss (but protected by the aluminium frame of an antenna). Losing a few tiles is a problem, but usually not critical considering both the steel frame and the protective layer under the heat shield. This is still the first flight of a very much in development program. The procedure will change countless times as it continues, but for now they want to find the limits and possible issues and putting the tiles is a good way of doing that. Putting on tiles is also very time consuming, and when they start reusing starships they are going to have to always SF them with the heat shield on (until they start removing the static fire, like on F9) There you go: Being pessimistic, the count is too high by 200 and 7 tiles fell off. This means that it has lost the 0.045% of the total tiles during the static fire If we have to be cynical, Columbia lost more than 2,000 of its 21,000 tiles when being trasported on the SCA in 1979, or almost 10%

6, not 5. 5 is maybe possible, but highly unlikely The next 5 booster already have thrust pucks delivered now

More info on the test, it was a Raptor 2 tested to set pressure levels at McGregor on the 23rd october. RUD occurred before reaching pressure levels but as Elon said, it's probably not a problem with the engine structure (from the usual trustable spacex insiders)

Ah, a mockup per test. Makes sense

I thought this was already a non functional mockup of the real thing that was definitely not starship?

What is the argument exactly? Are you expecting them to find out that they've actually built an oversized churro instead of a rocket and so the work on the tower is useless? They did it this way instead. Sure, you can do it without, and? There are various ways they attach tiles in places where there is more heating during reentry or that are less accessible. If it the vibrations are too high in a spot, they use the other methods

Gateway to Mars The shots of the last 10 seconds are just amazing (these)