JoeSchmuckatelli

Yeah - I expect that now... for whatever reason I thought they'd build a SH and we'd see a repeat of SN-analogous launches to practice landing, rather than a full flight attempt (3/4 around the planet counts, I would think). Impressively bold. So... now I'm confused. What ship is going to do a practice landing (but actually ditch) into the water near Hawaii -- Is that SN20? If so, what will SH do? Practice land in the Atlantic?

Wait - their first attempt with SH will be orbital? That means they'll need a SS to go along for the ride

The drawing of BN2 shows a boatload of Raptors sketched for future hanging How many would they actually need for suborbital testing? Is 3 enough? 6?

There is no PR problem. Everything is fine. Everything is always fine. Right?

The real challenge is building the container for the matrix so that we can use it efficiently https://images.app.goo.gl/PybbWq2y8zzjeDDm6

If you ever wondered how SX was going to make any monies by flinging internet into space and bathing rural areas in low grade radiation: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/new-federal-broadband-maps-show-stark-differences-access-affordability-rcna1220 The Red parts are where broadband is needed

Its all made up stuff anyway. As long as enough people agree on the rules, the game is fair. Think about using watches, clocks and calendars on a planet that rotates once every 27 hours and takes 15.3 months to circle its star. A second is a heartbeat, right? Totally subjective. Eddie: what time is it?

Now that is professional spacefaring!

So - is the Merlin and stage now 'junk' ?

Approaching this from 8 years after this was posted - I'm still compelled to answer. I grew up used to the American system (I could not possibly tell you a man's weight in Stone - but some Brit friends can). I can also talk confidently in meters and kilometers - thanks to my time in the military. So much so that it's almost natural - native language... you could say I am fluent in meters and klicks. But when it comes to millimeters and centimeters I am somewhat still 'translating' - I 'know' how big 5.56 is, just as I know how wide 120mm is - because they are rounds I have used. But if you tell me something is 7cm... I have to translate that. The key for me - in knowing meters and klicks is by having stared at, measured, counted and walked in those terms. For years and years I lived, talked and operated in those - and I talk in those to other military folks. I don't drive in klicks, however. I drive in miles. I bike in miles - but I can walk, even run in klicks. I can shoot in meters, even range in meters. But I cannot, for the life of me, drive in meters or kilometers. At least not in a civilian car, on a road. I certainly can in a tank across the desert. I've done that. Don't get me started on anything other than liters. I know about how big a liter is. I regularly carry one on my back. I cannot tell you whether a glass is a deciliter or some number of milliliters... it just has no meaning. Cup, pint, quart, gallon - I know them all. I can guestimate the conversion from pounds to kilos (about half) - but if you asked me how much a man weighs - I'll say he's about a buck-eighty... never ninety. Fuggitabout it with degrees of centigrade: that's just too pat. Water boils at 212 degrees. 117 is bloody hot outside. 50? You need a jacket. Ask my friend in France what he wears when it's 50, and he starts talking about Global Warming. I have a sneaky suspicion that the metric system is 'too made up'. - speed of sound is close to 300m/s. Speed of light is close to 300,000 km/s --- waaaay too convenient. Someone is cheating. 186,000 miles per second makes sense to me. Counting to 5 for every mile between the flash and bang of lightning tells me how far away the storm is... but I can also count three seconds from the flash of a tank firing and the boom and know its almost a klick away. All of this is to say - these units of measurement are like a language. You can learn it, but only translate it to what you know... until you live it. Only then does any made up system of measurement become real. Only by living it - will we ever be fluent in it.

How far out did they go? (That's an amazing shot!)

If SN20 is a 'major technology rev' - do we have any idea what those changes might be? ... Or are we likely to see them 'repeat the cycle' of testing SH several iterations of fly and RUD before they mate a SS to a SH and try for a landing? Seems to me that they could at least throw SN16 into the air atop one of the later (3d/4th) SH attempts and see if there is anything to be learned from a controlled splash into the ocean attempt. Or are they likely to think that there's enough iterative change to SN 20 that doing anything with SN16 is a waste of time, money and resources?

We need a 'groan' button, apparently

Re: the tweet... Somebody feels they are not getting their cut. Police Union, maybe?

OK - but do they have an analogous term from some of their ancient, warlike ancestors to 'lunar'? (Munar is cheating)

As someone who has driven heavy stuff down roads... I'm wondering what the ground pressure of their transport trailer is going to look like. There's a reason NASA went with a crawler - and while I've seen lots of different ways of doing things since its inception - a vertical drive down the road looks risky. This makes sense: ...but this looks fraught: A configuration like the first image makes it unlikely to tip over and really spreads the load (preventing damage to the road, or getting the load tipping if the road partly collapses) - but the height over the base of the vertical alignment plus the greater ground pressure of having fewer wheels makes me hope someone has run the numbers on the road surface.

I thought they mounted the engines once the ship was on the platform at the launch site. So - if I'm wrong about that - where are the outdoor pictures of them mounting / demounting the engines taken?

How far is the 'drive' from the bay to the launch site? Any idea whether the increased height of the booster might make that trip a bit more fraught? Hate to see the thing tip over between build and launch. NASA's crawler-transporters have both a lot of weight and a wider base, so moving a vertically oriented rocket isn't really a problem - or do they drive it horizontal like that one JAXA rocket a while back and lift it vertical again once there?

Given SX's capabilities - are we seeing an uptick in government / commercial launches unrelated to Starlink? (Just wondering how sustainable is the launch capacity, and whether we are seeing the start of deeper market for the exploitation of space - based economic growth, or if the launch frequency will peter out once Starlink has been deployed)

Well - in KSP terms, there is less utility in running the same test twice. Given that the real risk to mission is the launch (boom), followed by a lower chance of failure to wake up - once you have a mission in orbit, having two ships with the same science gear makes the redundant one... Redundant. But if you are mining unobtanium and profits are measured by the grams returned to Earth's surface... Redundancy becomes 'additional resource recovery'. We keep making dedicated, unique craft for every single mission. What would be cool is if we had a 'general service core module' being produced for any mission, and science teams could just hang different stuff on the core for any mission desired.

My guess is the high per unit cost that is bourne by the taxpayers. If there was a profit to be made and a company running the show, a redundant craft might make sense. Webb.

That is the kind of 'coup' that would appeal to someone trying to establish themselves as a top-tier space exploration / exploitation nation. To those who risk go the rewards. What would be funny is if Elon does it before either.

I really enjoyed this show and tell. Gives us an appreciation for what the artists ( parts, environment and lighting) can accomplish together. Thanks for sharing! (also - really liked that I get to build roads!)

If they are taking old, out of shape non-scientists that are 6'7" or so and who live in America... Count me in!

Think the 'Jonny 5' / WALL-E' look is intentional?