Wjolcz

That's why I think it's combined. There could be three legs like on this render + three fins like on the more recent design. Edit: either that or there are 2 fins instead of three to save weight. But then those fins would be kind of useless or even liability on the ground.

Maybe it's both but with leg structure sticking out on the ship's hull. Edit: 2 problems I see with the fins acting as legs is the problem with protecting the hinges during movement. The hinge part would either have to be covered in shielding material or the shield material/structure would have to somehow move in and out to cover the hinge. The second problem is the twisting of fins on the ground we've discussed before. Adding three more legs in the middle is a nice way to counteract that.

So, at least in BC, it will get horizontal at some point after all. I thought it would be vertical the whole time and then transported much the same way to the pad. Now, I don't think they will transport it like that because that would require some sort of internal structure extending all the way to the nose region, but maybe they will have something like that? It needs to be lifted by cranes somehow after all.

7 years ago I would've said the same thing about Grasshopper if only I had any interest in spaceflight.

We've already seen Falcon being launched every two weeks or so, so not impossible. As I said previously: we've already seen Falcon being launched two times a month. If they can do that with customers then they can do that internally. In fact, it's probably easier to control the whole production, payload mating, etc. process internally than when you are a launch provider for someone else. Their current record of total rocket launches in a year is 19. Not impossible. Now, I know it's a VERY BIG "if"at the moment, but if they use the Starship they won't need this many Falcon launches to complete the constellation.

Why?

TBH the minute I finished reading that Teslarati article about ESA and SpaceX I thought that it looked very much like one of those "nothing happened!!!! BUT... we still reported on it" articles. Those avoidance manouvres seem to be pretty common, it's just that this time Starlink sats were involved. They are pretty new to the wholr orbit place and I bet there will be more of those incidents in the future. Not only because there will be more sats but because it's just something that can't be avoided (no pun intended) and has to happen eventually.

The problem is space junk will accumulate over time anyway. You can bash Falcon for being small and puny as much as you want but it's its second stage that actually deorbits itself to keep space as clean as possible. Now, as I said, space junk will build up anyway. You can either accept it and keep leaving spent second stages in stable orbits (because it's better to boost that extra 200-300kg to its final orbit than deorbit the upper stage), or fight it with big stuff like Starship that could probably act as a space garbage truck collecting all those upper Atlas stages. Either way, I agree. Size matters.

But if it was a dead one then they couldn't do anything anyway. If it was an active but decaying one I don't think moving it would hurt them that much. It could have been an active one though. If so, they must be really cheap to produce if they are willing to sacrifice one of them just like that.

Looks to me like the hinge part we've seen before.

I've heard somewhere that people from that project work with SpaceX now. Delta Clipper was pretty cool. It's a shame it had one minor failure that got it cancelled. Also, it was designed to be SSTO from the start, so wasn't going to happen anyway.

I've been wondering for a while now: how will they deal with tropical storms/hurricanes and how will they make sure the rocket survives it? Seems like a serious problem. BC's weather should be much calmer, right? I still think building starships in one place and shipping them via suborbital hops is not that bad of an idea. Hopefully nothing bad happens.

Sea Dragon is probably not impossible. Although, landing it would probably be nightmare-ish to develop. Even if it has to "soft land" in water.

The 5G apocalypse is nigh

Sweet! So how much time will all the testing take? About a year?

LIKES FOR EVERYBODY WOOOO Edit: i ran out

I haven't seen the yesterday's stream yet so don't know if they used it or not. I remember when one of the hops was aborted in July and I know they have it. Assumed you guys were talking about the whole methane business because they didn't use it this time.

I'd imagine it's not that great either. Especially since it's not renewable (unlike methane). They probably won't do that but it would be pretty nice/cool if at least a part of the propellant was produced from water and air using some sort of sea-based solar power plant.

I think it would be best if they either pumped it back to the storage tank (it's not cryogenic like hydrogen, so it shouldn't be that hard, right?), or at least burn it instead of just venting. Btw, I'm pretty sure they will probably do one of the two, or both, regularly once the rocket is more mature.

How much will the heat shield weigh, do you reckon? Maybe that's what the extra first stage outboard engines will be for? Basically, to compensate for the additional weight.

Let's say 50% because it's KSP. If there's Alpha Centauri counterpart in the game that's still 8 ingame years/Kerbin orbits. That's not bad if you are playing alone. Just warp. Will be super boring in MP.

Then how will interstellar travel work otherwise? Star systems can't be light hours away. Unless Daedalos or other propulsion system let's you achieve something like 99% of c then you will be waiting for a long time to get from one star to another. I'm honestly totally fine with stationary deep space jump gates in a form of a really big and hard to build structure or a magical artifact.

You know what would be cool? If players could build jump gates together. You would have to cooperate and add pieces to a gate to another system then jump and build another one there aimed at the system you came from. Or you could have artifacts that do that, like the Monolith from 2001.