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2 minutes ago, ThatGuyWithALongUsername said:

It's too early for speculation, but to me it sounds like this was similar to CRS-16, or maybe the comms failed instead?

Grid fins were working, though. Wonder what upper level winds were.

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8 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

My guess is fabric insulation or heat protection for the engine compartment, 

It clinged...

You know what, it does look like it appeared like toothpaste. What if it's hydraulic liquid from the grid fin system? It would behave something like this in vacuum.

edit: and with leaking hydraulic system, targeting becomes difficult, thus failure to pinpoint the barge... It's plausible.

Edited by lajoswinkler
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2 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

It clinged...

You know what, it does look like it appeared like toothpaste. What if it's hydraulic liquid from the grid fin system? It would behave something like this in vacuum.

I'm thinking the same thing. But then it's kind of flexible like rubber or something.

Edited by Wjolcz
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Just now, lajoswinkler said:

It clinged...

You know what, it does look like it appeared like toothpaste. What if it's hydraulic liquid from the grid fin system? It would behave something like this in vacuum.

It is so hard to get perspective on where that came from from that camera angle. Is it from the grid fins or the engine area?

Can the hydraulic fluid freeze?

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Just now, Nightside said:

It is so hard to get perspective on where that came from from that camera angle. Is it from the grid fins or the engine area?

Can the hydraulic fluid freeze?

Usually oils are used, so they aren't very volatile, but I have no idea which one these things use.

If it leaks slowly, it could give off enough heat to turn pasty. Like this, only in weightlessness...

giphy.gif

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Just now, lajoswinkler said:

Usually oils are used, so they aren't very volatile, but I have no idea which one these things use.

If it leaks slowly, it could give off enough heat to turn pasty. Like this, only in weightlessness...

<delicious frosted waffle>

mmmm. time for second breakfast.

But wait, wouldn't frosting be an emulsion (entrained air)?

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7 minutes ago, Nightside said:

Can the hydraulic fluid freeze?

Having experienced a burst hydraulic line on a forklift in a freezer, hydraulic fluid not intended for extreme cold will become the consistency of creamed honey in extreme cold. Hard to say if they would use specialized hydraulic fluid. They may not think it would be exposed to extreme cold for long enough, but there are cryogenics on board, so they may decide to err on the side of caution (a lesson learned the hard way many times by rocket engineers....)

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13 minutes ago, Nightside said:

It is so hard to get perspective on where that came from from that camera angle. Is it from the grid fins or the engine area?

Can the hydraulic fluid freeze?

I think it got pushed away by the thruster after a burst, so it seems to be on the grid fin side.

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Always sad when a booster doesn’t stick the landing :( but on the plus side SN1 stacking looks much nicer than the previous crinkle aesthetic XD

Edited by Guest
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1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Having experienced a burst hydraulic line on a forklift in a freezer, hydraulic fluid not intended for extreme cold will become the consistency of creamed honey in extreme cold. Hard to say if they would use specialized hydraulic fluid. They may not think it would be exposed to extreme cold for long enough, but there are cryogenics on board, so they may decide to err on the side of caution (a lesson learned the hard way many times by rocket engineers....)

As long as it flows and has negligible compressibility in working range, it's ok for hydraulics. For example materials with the consistency of lithium grease at room temperature - perfectly fine for force transmission. If you squeezed it through a crack into vacuum in free fall, it would get out like jagged snake, having some small degree of elasticity. That's why it reminded me of it.

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Now this raises the issue on no abort system for manned starship. The primary issue is not launch even if both Falcon 9 fails was upper stage but landings and even that this would probably been an walk away landing on ground as they missed by 1-300 meters. 
That is for going to orbit, who is still an extreme sport. 
For P2P well starship probably need to be proven to be 1000 times safer than falcon 9 to start getting considered for approval as an airliner. 

For freight, well we have far more abort modes than the shuttle and you can add an kick stage to the 100 ton payload capacity. 
Hint an Falcon 9 second stage is 100 ton :), launch cost will be a bit cheaper than falcon 9.
Yes that will be like selling 100$ bills for 10$.

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Given how cheap Starships could possibly be to build (Musk actually told Zubrin they could cost 5M$ each to build), reuse is not even important as a cargo vehicle to LEO. That's less than the retail cost of F9 fairings (Musk said fairings were 6M).

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