tater

Given the diameter and engines, I suppose getting production up makes sense—they can always alter the steel (thickness, type, etc), height of vehicle, etc. My guess is that having employed people full time, making stuff they throw away only wastes the steel, as they are paying workers regardless. Guess we'll know soon enough how it turns out, lol

One feature (problem, lol?) with current Starship testing is that they are optimizing for both the vehicle, and the process of making the vehicle. As a result, they are truly hardware rich. The feature/issue with this is that the current build might be several vehicles newer than the next one to fly. They are not shy about scrapping deprecated designs, but some seem far enough along they feel it's best to dispose of them by flying them to gain data, even if some aspects of the design to fly are currently irrelevant.

Yeah, I included it because it was bizarre.

liftoff in 5 min

Another routine flight to space.

I agree with you completely. I was merely saying that their method was the norm pre-SpaceX. No government(s) are going to be as agile as required I think.

To be fair, this is the model that the US used from the early days of the Apollo program, and pretty much all other space programs have been top-down affairs. If everyone plays the same game it's slow, but it works.

I guess mine could be merged with the original.

"Made in all the districts" was the thought.

I realized that I started a thread (a while ago) even though I had already marked someone else's in my list that predates mine.

What makes Ariane 6 really tick (hint: it's the same special sauce as SLS/Orion):

Is it possble to pass ownership of a thread to someone?

I don't think this is handheld, way too steady.

This ticking clock issue reminds me of the SLS round trips from/to VAB issue, FTS battery replacement, etc. Seems plausible.

Secret makes more sense than patents for reasons stated above. With both Tesla and SpaceX I think the idea is to simply move faster. Tesla has to actually be competitive at some level, but the how is less important than just doing it. SpaceX has no need to be competitive except maybe in the sat internet space, since launch as a business is chump change—unless there is a state change in access. In the latter case, competitors don't actually matter. If a new multi-trillion dollar asteroid mining economy is a thing, or whatever, then there's enough for multiple companies to make money. I missed this eating a late dinner:

(what I was hearing earlier, but it was not for public consumption) Guess I will watch on my phone (or wife's laptop) from London.