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3 hours ago, DDE said:

A dense "package" may badly offset the CoM on those fairings, leading to tumbling, unpredictable trajectory, and either huge g-loads on the passengers, or the passengers reentering face-first and getting badly burned.

I don't seriously think they'd do it, but the CoM issue is already a well-studied one--aircraft operators are *very* cognizant of weight and balance issues already.  Besides, I understand each fairing half has its own reaction control thrusters, so it can make sure to re-enter in the correct orientation, and the curved shape will be aerodynamically stable.

The shock when the chute opens looks pretty wild, though.

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34 minutes ago, zolotiyeruki said:

and the curved shape will be aerodynamically stable.

Only if you tie them up on the outer side, IMHO. Which will be an interesting experience a max Q.

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2 hours ago, DDE said:

Only if you tie them up on the outer side, IMHO. Which will be an interesting experience a max Q.

The curved outer surface would just act like extreme dihedral, and keep the squishy meatbags in the leeward side, wouldn't it?

Besides, the fairing has a diameter of about 5m and a mass of about 900kg, so a 75kg person on the inside surface wouldn't affect the CoM much. 

Of course, I'd also love to see each fairing half sprout stubby little winglets after separation and glide back to the launch pad :P

Edited by zolotiyeruki
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During summer I thought “We haven’t heard about BFR for ages, can’t wait till Elon gives an update!”

Now we have news about Starship development every day. Loving it.

And it’s going to get even more interesting from now on.

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1 hour ago, sh1pman said:

During summer I thought “We haven’t heard about BFR for ages, can’t wait till Elon gives an update!”

Now we have news about Starship development every day. Loving it.

And it’s going to get even more interesting from now on.

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:

 

Edited by ThatGuyWithALongUsername
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4 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

It appears that that either was a fit test or they are having issues with fitting it in.

1538265.jpg

It's off again.

1538273.jpg

Couldn't get all of them it I guess...

*Remembers how the people could not fit the nuclear material in the explosives before the A bomb test in 1945*

Anyone got a cold gas thruster lying around? No?

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4 hours ago, MaverickSawyer said:

Yes, otherwise...

giphy.gif

The mouse cannot into space.

6 hours ago, Xd the great said:

Anyone got a cold gas thruster lying around? No?

I’ll get my fire extinguisher.

11 hours ago, zolotiyeruki said:

The curved outer surface would just act like extreme dihedral, and keep the squishy meatbags in the leeward side, wouldn't it?

Yeah, assuming the CoM issues I was worried about don’t occur. Plus to my knowledge some of the nastier high-temperature plasma occurs too high up for aerodynamics to be reliable.

Which reminds me... photograph of a SpaceX fairing tourist:

S117returnstoEarth2552.jpg

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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 :P

Spoiler

DwehjOTVAAAUw-x?format=jpg&name=large (don't zoom in please)

EDIT: WAIT NVM HE ALREADY DID THIS

 

 

Edited by ThatGuyWithALongUsername
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3 hours ago, DDE said:

Which reminds me... photograph of a SpaceX fairing tourist:

S117returnstoEarth2552.jpg

Or would that be a space-fa(i)ring tourist?

That's an awesome picture, and makes me wonder if a personal heatshield would be plausible.  Slowing down a 125kg astronaut with space suit would be easier than a 4 ton capsule, right? :P

How long until we get a Marvel movie with Captain American surfing down from orbit on his shield?

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