CatastrophicFailure

This thing happened: Isn't it just the cutest? This lil guy took off like a shot when I was out mowing with the tractor and probably saved his litter mates from an awful fate. One more pass and… Of course, it couldn’t go perfectly. These two bolted for the underbrush once we found the nest to return the first guy. Checked back a couple hours later and he was still there, but the other two hadn’t come back. Hopefully momma bunny gets them all sorted out soon.

*GASP* Maybe what we’re seeing here isn’t for standard Starship, it’s a pathfinder for lunar Starship. The shape of the door makes much more sense then, if there’s a (planned) crew compartment above.

That doesn't seem conducive to "rapid, reliable reusability..." Seems like a lot of work, and potential failure points if the same tiles are going on and off over & over. There's been talk of tethering two starship nose to nose for artificial grabbity, I wonder if they could use some single point of attachment beneath an opening nose tip, kinda like the docking port on Dragon? Would need some stabilizing arms that brace the leeward side. Or just attach the lifting mechanism only to the leeward side with some kind of cantilever, like the ol' balanced hammer physics trick... I also wonder if, knowing they're being watched 24/7, they deliberately position stuff like this the wrong way with just enough view for a tease, just to mess with all of us. Er, nevermind... Seems like a big chunk is inaccessible tho?

FYI, Soyuz 18a. Also MS-10, technically.

Prolly a similar musical thing to this…

IIRC they very, very specifically added a lockout system so that couldn’t foreseeably happen again.

Well, if (at that point) both the pad and booster are technically expendable…

We got a puppy! I. AM. SO. TIRED.

Well, they couldn’t let that stand… It’s ok, they can take a page from the ship’s namesake and just go in their suits.

A little clunky to work with, but otherwise very very solid…

I was thinking more this...

Your (over)analysis of these tiles is, as always, fascinating. More likely what we’re looking at here is just another pathfinder with half-finished test sections, that’s my guess.

That’s what you get for letting this guy handle the IT department.

I expect he wouldn't use that ticket until SS2 has a significant commercial flight record behind it, indeed. Plus, as he and Branson are friends, he's likely privy to some engineering data the rest of us are not that maybe boosts his confidence.

Well, this is interesting...

Thaaaaats gonna rustle some… er, feathers. Boca is not equipped to handle a crowd like that, let’s hope they stay across the water. Then whatever you do, do NOT google kiviak.

Sounds like someone just got promoted to “guy who stands under the engine with a lighter.”

Indeed. I'll save the one-word tweet but Elon confirmed (sort of) that it should indeed be autonomous, moving totally under its own power, at least to and from Port.

Me:

Allegedly from Tory's own alt account...

Hopefully no rumbling. Rumblings would be bad at this point, let's just hope for nice, boring, no-unexpected-noises tanking tests.

oof.

Looks to me like something similar to the jig they use to weld the fin mounts on. Retractable leg mount maybe? I thought they’d be fixed, if anything.