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19 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Meanwhile, the pad around S20 is clear and the overpressure notice still not cancelled, so at least that seems to be going forward for now. B4 static fire NET January

(╯ರ ~ ರ)╯︵ ┻━┻

Welp, I suppose that just guarantees Starship will be ready to fly by the time the environmental review comes through.

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4 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

(╯ರ ~ ರ)╯︵ ┻━┻

Welp, I suppose that just guarantees Starship will be ready to fly by the time the environmental review comes through.

Yeah, if B4 and S20 are the ones to fly then 100% will be ready by the time they get the launch license. If it's B8 and S20 then probably it will be at the beginning of its testing campaign

Edit: forgot to add, rumour is that it's the FWS mainly holding back the final EA. Coincidentally though having this delay instead of directly ruling for an EIS makes a mitigated FONSI more likely to happen. Whatever the current problem may be it doesn't seem to be impossible to overcome, or there would be no reason to wait two more months

Edited by Beccab
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2 hours ago, Beccab said:

Yeah, if B4 and S20 are the ones to fly then 100% will be ready by the time they get the launch license. If it's B8 and S20 then probably it will be at the beginning of its testing campaign

Edit: forgot to add, rumour is that it's the FWS mainly holding back the final EA. Coincidentally though having this delay instead of directly ruling for an EIS makes a mitigated FONSI more likely to happen. Whatever the current problem may be it doesn't seem to be impossible to overcome, or there would be no reason to wait two more months

What is FWS in this context?

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38 minutes ago, tater said:

Asked about putting humans on Mars he said best case 5 years, worst case 10.

That makes it 15 years.

Don't forget it's in Elon Time units. For the real average time in years you have to add the two values.

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3 hours ago, Minmus Taster said:

8 years later:

Hey yall FAA here! were now targeting "sometime soon" for the conclusion of the-

It's surreal to me watching the world spend the last three years blasting the FAA for supposedly not regulating industry carefully enough, and then seeing SpaceX fans lose their minds over the FAA being careful about signing off on this orbital test flight.

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21 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

lose their minds over the FAA

Completely different in kind.  Passenger safety over testing w/o passengers. 

Similar to how Tesla should be raked over the coals for the autonomous driving system but Oshkosh should be able to develop their military prototypes off civilian roads 

Edited by JoeSchmuckatelli
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20 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

It's surreal to me watching the world spend the last three years blasting the FAA for supposedly not regulating industry carefully enough, and then seeing SpaceX fans lose their minds over the FAA being careful about signing off on this orbital test flight.

I think they’re making fun of FAA, not losing their minds. 

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14 hours ago, sh1pman said:

I think they’re making fun of FAA, not losing their minds. 

IMO, some of them are. Well, maybe not their minds. I was originally going to say "losing their (something else)", but I've recently been reminded by the mods not to use words that I consider to be pretty harmless but they consider to be against forum rules. Let's just say, "losing their composure".

The point is that there is very little worse for a regulatory agency than to have Congress, who provides their funding and writes the laws they operate under, call them in and hold a public show trial over their perceived lack of rigor and over-friendliness to industry. (I say "perceived", because IMO the whole situation is much more complicated than that.) They are certainly not going to want that to keep happening to them. This is very much not the time for any company to try to complain that the FAA is slowing them down by not bowing to the company's will and timetable. (Although it's not at all clear that SpaceX would actually be ready to do this launch anyway.)

Nor is it the time for companies to fail to at least make a visible effort to be careful about environmental protection. I definitely do not think all the companies that talk about sustainability are actually all that interested in sustaining anything other than their profits, but at least most of them recognize that being perceived as anti-environmental right now actually does threaten the sustainability of their profits.

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Guest The Doodling Astronaut
15 hours ago, sh1pman said:

I think they’re making fun of FAA, not losing their minds. 

While it’s annoying, I’m only just seeing what safety agencies have to do. I don’t see the FAA doing anything wrong.

16 hours ago, grawl said:

That makes it 15 years.

Don't forget it's in Elon Time units. For the real average time in years you have to add the two values.

It’s a weird question for sure. I think it took a while for Elon to answer because they are more focused on getting it into orbit and recovering it. Then get a stable cargo program, eventually test having crew, then so on. One step at a time.

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Long and interesting twitter thread about GSE construction and problems, TL;DR:

- All good with LOX and water tanks

- LCH4 tanks likely unusable since they are too close to each other and in an unfavourable position

- horizontal tanks moved last October are their permanent replacement, that while stolen from the SpaceX air liquidification plant because priorities are compliant with the requirements and will be used to fuel the full stack. 

In case you were wondering, the tanks that will now have to go to the air liquidification plant will probably arrive mid 2022 if they were ordered around the same time they found the GSE issues

Edited by Beccab
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https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/elon-musks-spacex-raises-over-337-mln-fresh-funding-2021-12-29/

SpaceX raised 337 million dollars as equity financing recently

Looks like a booster in a recent Falcon 9 mission encountered some very rough seas shortly after landing, which resulted in the poor octograbber unable to grab the booster and a leg getting damaged by the waves resulting in further damage to Merlin nozzles. The whole barge is now leaning because of the unbalanced weight, since the trip also ended up moving the booster away from the center

Artistic representation of the incident:

 

Edited by Beccab
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B4 has been disconnected from the quick disconnect last night as it has to be lifted and then put back on the OLM before the booster static fire series can begin

 

Quoting the usual spacex insider on reddit:

"Water deluge (IOS) and fire supression (FSS) needs testing, without unnecessarily back-spraying the engines. However whilst lift is in the schedule, things are fluid whilst most take a break over the holidays.  Another S20 static in the NY."

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52 minutes ago, caecilliusinhorto said:

I thought the reason they made the launch mount so high was so that they wouldn't have to use water deluge systems?

The reason that the launch mount is high up is so a flame trench/diverter isn't necessary. A flame trench exists to prevent the exhaust from physically damaging the launch site (and by extension protect the rocket from debris kicked up by the exhaust), whereas a water deluge system exists to damp the sound of the rocket launch.

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