CatastrophicFailure

Suddenly that needed “every two weeks” launch cadence seems much more reasonable.

Ahem... Beck has officially replaced Musk as "Billionaire most likely to become a Bond Villain." Also:

I wonder if, perhaps, they’re counting more on cost optimizations on the reuse side as the major benefit. Beck has said before that for him, reuse is more about launch cadence than outright savings. Since it’s built from the ground up for reuse, Neutron may have a much easier process from landing pad back to launch pad. Quicker turnaround means less boosters needed overall so production can focus on mass-producing the upper stage.

nah, they’ll have cryogenic stuff on board, so they’ve got really good air conditioners. They good.

You should forward that to his English professor just so you can hear the screams from across campus.

This will break someone’s brain…

Saw a tweet that they just finished replacing the heat shield tiles, gotta shake 'em loose again I guess.

Well yeah, it’s Russia.

Somewhere, somewhen, there is an alternate reality where not only did this happen, it happened so much it became boring.... I want a reality transfer...

It’s interesting that people seem to already have a “nostalgic” attachment to the Falcon 9 and want to see it keep flying once it’s no longer needed. The paradigm shift that Starship could bring does take a real mental gearshift to grok. To put it another way, a brand new Cessna 172 costs about $300,000, and it can easily take your 50lb payload from, say, Seattle to San Francisco, then crash in the ocean. UPS can ship it there by jumbo jet for a measly $65 bucks, but they keep the airplane. Even if you wanted really personal service, chartering a whole 747 would still only cost around $70,000, but again, they get to keep the airplane. There’s just no economic justification to buy that Cessna and throw it away, no matter how classic is looks. Same deal with Starship (if it works), there’s just no economic justification to keep flying F9. Even your teeny, tiny cubesat all alone will be much cheaper on that reusable behemoth than the throwaway classic. No one else is gonna want to bother with it either, again because it makes no economic sense.

He can get annoying really fast, he’s a little over-enthusiastic sometimes… but he also comes through with some damn good information from time to time as well.

21% once you subtract plug-in hybrids, the next highest is VW with half that. https://www.investors.com/news/tesla-still-leads-global-ev-market-and-its-not-even-close/ And something like 80% market share in the US.

Maybe if they try really hard they can finally compete with the Model S… from 2012…

Discovered this works with the puppy, too. Now, this is after tearing up and down the hallway at full tilt for a solid 20 minutes nonstop, so he's a little winded. Gonna have to get some slowmo of him going in circles til he falls over.

That will depend entirely upon the availability of a massive generation ship to commandeer as an impactor and/or a brooding, anachronistic film noir detective to go play kissyface with the Protomolecule.

Yeesh, watch your fingers in there or it's gonna open you, too.

Just wait til it meets 300kg IXPE. …which is getting surprisingly little press considering it’s launching into a 500-km equatorial orbit from the Cape.

It’s Monday. Sometimes that’s half the battle, sometimes that IS the battle.

November twenty-Ford...

Hmm... someone mentioned nuclear... could you run a NTR on methane? Or even methane/LOX? Sure, it wouldn't be as efficient as hydrogen, but would surely be better ISP than Raptor could ever do, with the simplicity of using the same propellant(s).

Well, I’m out.

See that & raise you…

I could never be a teacher, I’d use this line way too much. With full costume and theatrics. “Uh oh, someone’s flunking, prof’s got his good robes on today… “ Don’t trouble yourself too much, English is a silly language. Shall is more just formal these days, or for trying unsuccessfully to sound overly British.

High thrust, lousy ISP.