Wjolcz

So they did decide to use that nose cone for SN2 after all. It's pretty amazing how quickly they are built.

The most uplifting thought is that, compared to Falcon 1, Musk and SpaceX have enough money to keep going even if they fail a couple of times. Falcon 1 had serious problems too. And they had limited number of rockets and funding to reach the orbit. Here, we might wait a couple more tries (and failures) but I'm 100% sure that sooner or later we will see that thing actually fly.

Since they got that SN1 nose cone finished maybe they can use it for SN2. So, maybe it will be built even quicker.

I just hope this means that they are getting better at building them. Oh, well. If Saturn V flew then maybe this one will too (maybe, hopefully, please).

I thought this was for rockets lol

I get this point of view (my anti-tech friend has a similar view on the issue; he thinks autopilots take the 'fun' out of driving a car yourself) but nowadays people don't need self-driving features to become distracted/sleepy while driving. As I said a page or two ago: Recently, I almost got ran over by a guy in a Mercedes looking at his phone. And it's not like he was driving fast or anything, he just decided it was perfectly fine to take his eyes off the road while rolling through a busy crossroads (I was pretty sure he would stop but he obviously didn't). That wouldn't have happened if the car had some form of a basic autopilot/autobrake feature. IMO car autopilots can only make a positive impact (pun sort of intended). People are not perfect and have terrible reaction time compared to a computer.

It looks like it's mounted pretty close to one of the raceways. I guess SN1 won't fly after all.

It might change once all that infrastructure is in place. This stuff needs maintenance too. Btw, can't the Starship fly with just one engine? It's based on a lot of guesstimating but: 1. Starhopper flew with just one 2. Starship won't be fully fueled for a hop test so maybe having just 1 would be enough and comparable with Starhopper?

So FH looks more and more like a conventional launch vehicle, and by 'conventional' I mean 'pricey'. I do realize that reusability reduces cost significantly and they wouldn't be investing in all that integration infrastructure if it didn't bring SpaceX revenue. I just hope Starship is operational soon-ish. I still don't get why everyone thinks it will not fly ('wording' is kind of a bad reason to think so, especially since that info was pulled from Elon's tweets!). The fact that only the tank was transported for now most likely means that lighter things are just easier to transport. They might still finish it if the static fire goes well.

You can expect anything if you go big enough.

Remember when I said it's going to fly in late spring? I was about to say I was wrong and retract it but nah. Late spring it is then! It's a shame DelayX strikes again. But then if they were to lose raptors (because it would crash or pop) it's probably for the better.

A static fire would make sense though...

Plague Inc IRL

So since F9 boosters have been landed and reused so many times I'm assuming the Starship booster will be the easy part of the whole system. They just need the engines.

That square hole in the side looks hella ugly (and dangerous as it's a square). They will probably weld a plate on the inside, or something.

Looks like they are (presumably) welding something on the bigger part of the tank right now. But it's attached to the crane, so maybe?

What's with the "the ship can blink BUT needs realistic engines"? If you're writing a sci-fi book with these kind of rules you might as well go all Harry Potter magic rules which is just... no rules.

If water towers can fly... ...then why not silos?

There are also those 2 rings stacked in the video, unless that's the part they cut the holes in.

Woah. These look so much nicer than Mk1. And a lot of them too!

Besides, that one thing is not allowed for obvious reasons.

There are already people doing most of those things in zero G right now. I'd imagine most of the problems have already been solved.

Even though I will probably never fly on one of those (unless Starship somehow gets super cheap) I think it's very cool. Also, if the overview effect is real then we might see some very positive things happen done by people who can actually afford to make them happen.

Launching stuff from the Mun makes sense when you can build and/or refuel there (though the refuelling part really depends on the design). IRL it actually makes sense because launching stuff off the surface can be done with minimal effort and fuel (or even no fuel if we assume maglev is possible) as you don't need to power through all the air on your way up and then care about orbital decay due to drag (though the Moon has its orbital problems too). Whenever I do interplanetary in KSP I start building in LKO (160km). It's simply much easier that way and KSP is much more forgiving than real life when it comes to orbital speeds and fuels.