Pthigrivi

Elon himself said SH drymass would be 160-200t and we are definitely on the higher end given recent hardware addons. Tater thinks we’re less than a billion on OLM, the tower, fueling systems, deluge, and the last 3 years of launch-site development. I think he’s out to lunch. Because SX doesn’t disclose that information there’s no way to know.

Yeah I mean the full test flights.

Exactly. The last bit has been the clearest challenge so far (well that and the TPS system). Certainly they’ve made progress but only full test runs help solve the big hurdles now. This also probably figures into the risk/reward of a catch attempt, actually having a chance to inspect SH intact post flight if by miracle all goes to plan. It’ll be fun to watch either way.

Hey I thought unqualified and barely informed speculation was what this thread is all about!

Oh for sure, but its gonna be close and again the risk here is a non-nominal, multiple engine-out scenario or FTS a few hundred meters above the tower. Obviously SX is fine with the risk and its still worth it even with the FAA delays that entails. Im just wondering if thats actually wise given we haven't seen a nominal simulated landing yet.

Im talking about the tower and OLM. Given the time and energy that went into stage zero a billion dollars is probably pretty conservative. On one of the walkthroughs (Tim Dodd I think?) Elon said it was far and away the most complicated and expensive part of the project. Again it's not the explosion, it's the inertia of a 200 ton rocket hitting the tower or the OLM because of a major engine failure during the landing burn. It's kind of like hitting it with the statue of liberty going 100mph. None of the SH landings so far have been nominal and its widely speculated this is because of ice contamination in the fuel during re-lights. They seem to have been working very hard to resolve this and hopefully they have, but maybe not. One of the engines failed to re-light on IFT4 and in the footage from the water you can see that there are flames pouring out of the side. It's not hard to imagine a fire like that compromising adjacent engines just a few hundred meters over the tower. Obviously like any of us Im just a casual observer armchair quarterbacking. It just seems to me like the risk/reward here doesn't make a lot of sense vs doing one nominal over-water hover to be reasonably sure they have things nailed. It feels similar to IFT1 when they blew a crater below the OLM showering the area with debris because they didn't want to take the time to install the deluge system. It's risking a lot of unnecessary damage and delay for very little gain.

Id be surprised if China doesn’t have something like the USS Parche: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a37260563/uss-parche-tiny-ski-legs/

Yeah this is why I say it probably doesn't matter and will indeed be approved. SpaceX has anticipated at some point having a daily launch cadence which may matter for things like bird nesting. Again it probably isn't different given the extended area but Im not shocked that some review is necessary. Id personally expect more like 4 weeks than 8 weeks but I mostly deal with state agencies.

I think this is probably right, but being somewhat entangled with state regulation in the course of my day job (you all would lose your minds if you knew about VT Act 250) technically speaking, just because the sonic boom doesn't affect species within X radius doesn't mean it wont affect species within Y radius because there may be a wider range of biology in the wider area. If there's a nesting site for something endangered just outside the X radius boundary it might affect species recovery. I have to deal with these kinds of questions for basic housing and commercial projects with 2-20m budgets. Honestly the fact that they're able to build a rocket factory and launch site in an active wetland is kind of mindboggling to me so whining about "Oh you've increased your impact area but we'll review and get back in 60 days" seems like wildly generous deference to me.

This is the key item in the current delay, and is a direct result of them deciding to do the booster catch for IFT5 instead of waiting till IFT6 while the increased area is reviewed. And yes, if you increase the affected area there's going to be some review. Im sure SX legal team knows that. To be honest SpaceX is getting preferential treatment to be operating in this area at all but again, as a company they're given a certain amount of deference because they're important to the US's strategic goals. It's a good launch site. Its not carte blanche though. I get they want to work the ump but this a lot of whining over a 2 month delay SpaceX themselves incurred.

I mean the current moon missions (mess that they are) are government funded, as are all of the really quite cool probe work going on. Totally agreed that partisan backtracking is utterly annoying and counterproductive but the US isn't really in a good place right now for cooperating on basically anything. China has advanced really quite far in a relatively short period of time but I have even less to like about their government. Also agreed there's no real business plan for colonizing mars which is part of the reason I think it may not even happen, billionaire vanity project or no. There is a huge amount of money in mass to orbit though which is why SX is valued around 210B as of the last private equity round. Its no Apple or Amazon but there's definitely money in it in the short run. I just think if they ever actually started doing things that weren't profitable like colonization that money would evaporate. Either a lofty and unrealistic goal or just vaporware. As to Elon's mental state, its kinda like Kanye, his political ideas are dumb but not nearly the most worrying thing about him. It wouldn't matter except he's got thousands of employees, his cars and rockets have the potential to hurt people, and it's dangerous to have an unstable person in that kind of position. No Im not worried about superheavy hitting brownsville. It's the longer term plan to bring Starship down in the same location. The FAA should be incredibly scrutinizing when that time comes. This is in the context of Elon saying the he's being hampered by regulation, and sure, he is, but given that Boeing currently has doors blowing off and planes falling out of the sky I think its easy to argue corporate regulatory capture and an overly deferential posture by regulators is the bigger problem. SpaceX gets away with a lot because they've got a decent track record (so far) and the US sees them as a critical strategic asset.

The question is whether they lose thrust due to engine failure during the landing burn. One of the engines in IFT4 failed to light during this maneuver just a km from the target and in the surface camera view you can see flames billowing out of the side of rocket the even as its going 150kph right over the LZ. I know they've done a lot to mitigate the ice contamination issue and maybe they have it nailed. Why not just do one more test to make sure? The risk/reward of the catch vs waiting till IFT6 seems out of wack to me as an outside observer. Same with doing IFT1 before getting the deluge system fully ready. I get "move fast and break things" but there is a point where you are breaking things you don't have to and it becomes counterproductive.

No in the long term I agree it's a good idea. The last impact that could have plausibly threatened human existence was 65 million years ago so I think the statistical immediacy of this threat is way down on the list but of course having a more developed space infrastructure is great. I just think it will be at least 100 years before a mars colony could plausibly sustain itself as a back up plan so histrionics about week to week FAA approvals are kind of silly. First of all I don't think one need any kind of telepathy to know what Elon thinks about almost anything given he posts every thought that pops into his mind on twitter. I also don't think it's very difficult to question Musk's or Bezos' actual sincerity on much of anything besides making more money. His treatment of his employees, family, and random people he encounters online is also happening in the public eye often because he deliberately put it there. Rather than telepathy I think not acknowledging some of his clear personality flaws requires a bit of willful ignorance. Now, none of this is particularly on-topic unless his lack of concern for others' safety or generally erratic behavior begins to leak into SpaceX's decision making. I hadn't seen much evidence of that until the last year or so. Yeah Im not that worried about superheavy except that it might continue to suffer from ice-clogging and hit the tower. That would be very bad and dumb but not really a threat to people's lives. Like I said a single nominal hover would seem like a good idea. Starship is a different animal. It'll be coming in from the west so any loss of control or breakup during reentry could pose a risk to people on the ground. Even that wouldn't worry me too much except for the way they're approaching the TPS system, where a single tile loss in a critical place could threaten the stability of the vehicle. In 3 or 5 reentry tests you might get lucky. If however they're able to demonstrate a good number of nominal hover-landings without losing tiles that might give more confidence that they have the problem solved. They'd still be perfectly able to deliver starlink V2 and iron out any kinks with booster catching in that time. No thanks, this is interesting. It was my assumption that the safest situation was to have an airlock with people not in EVA suits on the other side in case anything went wrong. You're right though given time to repressurize you might even be better off with people already at suit pressure. I wonder how long it takes to bring the capsule back to 5psi?

Yeah and I don’t want to overstate the case here because thankfully Elon does almost always defer to the team of incredibly talented engineers at spaceX. Dragon is a very sensible and reliable workhorse. But dragon began development in 2004 and underwent a decade of uncrewed testing before crew-dragon was ready for actual passengers. Im fine with blowing up rockets but that kind of rigor really is needed when lives are at stake. I mean i love watching these starship launches and I too grumble when it takes so long to get FAA approval. At the same time we can’t have spacex endangering the population of brownsville and south texas just because Elon wants to move up a premature starship reentry tower catch before reliability demonstrating it can land precisely a dozen times or so without error. Certainly implying those kinds of delays are a threat to humanity is at best unserious hyperbole.

I suppose you mean Tesla? He bought a very promising electric car company and slowly but surely turned into another laughable monument to his own dumpster shaped ego. He does not actually care about climate change or anything besides his own fickle savior fantasies. This should be glaringly obvious to everyone. Its been my concern all along that Elon’s increasingly unhinged and careless attitude would start to affect spacex. Was it wise to test the new suits with a fully depressurized vessel with no safe-haven if something went wrong? Probably not. Was there any real scientific reason to send four people into the Van Allen belt for a few days? No. There were safer ways to test both these things. So we push the bar a little further toward expediency and lower cost over safety. That works fine for a while. You can keep making things cheaper and less safe and you look like a genius right up until someone gets injured or killed. This is how Boeing got into the situation its in.

Look, we may send people there in the next 10-15 years, maybe do some good science. But a self-sustaining colony is still 100 years out. You’ll have a few foolhardy goofs who don’t mind dying of cancer in their 50s, but living on Mars, most likely underground, is about 100 times less pleasant than living on Antarctica. The year round population of Antarctica is 1000 people. 1000 people can’t form a colony thats fully self sufficient and independent of earth. You probably need 100 million which wont happen for a very long time. There’s also no money in it, so the business model is senseless. Dont get me wrong spaceX is cool but colonizing mars is at best a goofy marketing pitch for the musk bros. The idea that our salvation lies in colonization of another planet is not just an escapist fantasy, it actively ignores the glaring reality that we actually have no choice but to save the planet we already have. Elon and his ilk have no actual interest in solving the real problem. He is interested entirely in propping up his own ego and increasingly deranged outlook no matter who gets hurt in the process. Elon is very, very good at getting the Saudi’s to dump billions of dollars on him, and like many people will billions of dollars and no grounded sense of reality he believes that makes him good at everything else. The truth is, however, he’s just another wealthy, megalomaniacal moron when it comes to most other things. I think one need look no further than cybertruck or hyperloop for evidence of that.

Its not that, its the potential for multiple engine failure and impact on the tower and/or orbital launch mount at speed. Again it seems like a nominal hover with a sh thats not guttering flame out of the side seems prudent before risking months of delays and a billion dollars worth of equipment. I know we’re going for rapid reusability but there is a point where these decisions veer into outright stupidity.

Lets not, please.

Im still pretty surprised they’re going for the catch on this one. The last one was very on fire when it hit the deck. They really want to risk the olm and tower? Seems like one nominal hover should be the minimum.

That sounds remarkably reasonable. I still think it'll be 6 before humans go given all of the other logistic challenges but I like the energy.

Can someone explain to me why sending 4 relatively inexperienced guinea pigs up there to fly through the van allen belt and test out suits with no airlock isn't kinda nuts? It's always worried me that spaceX might start taking the same kind of cavalier attitude toward human lives that they have with hardware.

You see this engine and its like seeing what engines should look like.

Thats pretty fun. Trying the catch on IFT5 seems really risky but we'll see. Man and Raptor 3 further up in the thread is looking incredible. What are the rumors on a date?

Thanks, Gargamel. I couldn’t recall an older thread on this specifically.

Everyone should let content makers, their friends, and everyone else know what horrendous business practices this company is engaging in and by rights Valve should intercede and pull this game from being purchased.