CatastrophicFailure

*pokes @KSK with a stick*

He says he’s got a baby due Monday. Also, his factory is basically shuttered, there’s a big rocket test coming up any day now, AND, as said above, there’s a really big rocket launch coming up in a few weeks that will likely have millions of eyes on it, AND if anything goes wrong, human lives will be at risk for the first time. I can understand if the guy’s a little stressed out right now.

Your move, Atlas V 411. Got the sound system and everything, even... Looks like everything kinda crashed today...

Apparently Starhopper is now a speaker platform, too. unce unce unce unce unce unce unce...

So this is interesting... Great, big, high mounted lights do make a certain amount of sense, and I recall Musk saying earlier the plan was to hoverslam and then (slowly) drop the last few meters. Hmmm.... ...tho personally I’m hoping for ice cream dispensers now...

“I’m ready for my close up now, Mr. DeHopper...” —SN5, probably

For simplicity’s sake, instead of developing a mostly new thruster based on Raptor, why not just use the powerpack of a Raptor? IIRC they fired these for pretty long durations during development. Not the most efficient, but it doesn’t really need to be if it’s just used for the final few hundred m/s before touchdown, and would need minimal new hardware.

Minor, but interesting observation on the landing profile:

Made a chicken tractor. That fits on a tractor tractor. Then went up to clear some more brush and found a couple things. First, ants. Lots and LOTS of ants. Google tells me these are thatching ants (Formica obscuripes). Called such cuz they build colonies out of like pine needles and grass clippings that look like, well, thatching. Which I kinda sort semi-intentionally destroyed. But, great site for the new chicken tractor! Also discovered this great big Black Hawthorne somehow surviving in a 2+ meter high mess of blackberries. It's got lots of flowers already, and is just a short flight in direct line-of-site to the beehives. Also, beer cans, tupperware, an old bathtub... people are pigs.

Got back to Kerballing lately after a bit of a hiatus (seems to come in seasons). Getting a new stupidly modded 3.2x career setup, and as I'm wont to do, I made a Soyuz clone: Complete with this nifty launch pad from Modular Launch Pads. <pic heavy warning>

You're presuming large numbers of Starlinks will simply fail with zero control, I find that unlikely, specifically because they know that's a risk. Unusable sats will get controlled de-orbits, as we're already seeing, IIRC they'll even do it autonomously, and the entire constellation will be turned over every 5 years or so. Kessler syndrome really isn't the boogeyman some people seem to think. Like the ones already limiting Time-Warner, Comcast, and all those other ISPs people love to hate? Starlink will be launching right into competition, and getting fat off the scraps the big guys ignore. If One Web or Amazon's thing plays out, all the better. Competition is good, and Musk himself has said this. You're presuming only the uber-rich will be able to afford the trip. The entire point is to reduce the cost enough that that doesn't happen. Get it down even as much as the value of an average house, and again you'll have no shortage of people willing to sell their homes and go up, young man. Whether this is a good idea belongs in that other thread, but the desire is there. Only the way we "laugh" (in nervous terror) at people heading out to fall of the end of the world in rickety wooden sailing ships today.

Ok, speaking of questions.... what’s up with the string of numbers after your posts?

Exactly. For that much, I'd sure a heck be throwing a cubesat up, just because I could. At prices even approaching that, it becomses practical from a business perspective to "throw stuff at space and see what sticks."

One word answers all your questions: Starlink. Or is that two? Anyways... SpaceX needs SS for Starlink, and Starlink will fund everything else. At least, that’s their stated plan. And that much of it makes sense, there’s billions to be made even with a tiny sliver of the global internet service market. And once SS is flying that much, it suddenly becomes cheaper than Falcon (or anything else) by orders of magnitude. Doesn’t matter if “there’s no 100 ton payloads,” if SS costs as much to launch as, say Electron, it just cheap to launch 5 tons. I know it’s a flawed analogy, but it’s cheaper to rent a 747 and reuse it than buy a brand new Cessna and throw it away. As for bigger payloads, it’s a vicious circle. There are no hundred-ton payloads because there are no hundred-ton lifters because there are no hundred-ton payloads. Create the access, and most importantly make it cheap, and now companies can build cheaper, heavier, “expendable” sats for much less than the current crop of (rightly) over-engineered billion-dollar marvels that absolutely have to work. If it’s successful, Starship will be a radical change to the existing paradigm, such that it’s difficult for some people to even see. They’ll have no trouble making money off it. That Starlink money, in turn, will finance SpaceX’s more “altruistic” goals of colonizing Mars. If that’s even possible at all, I guarantee you’ll have no trouble finding volunteers, even if that pool declines as price goes up. Whether all that’s a good idea is another thread, but this is SpaceX’s plan. Boeing, sadly, can’t find its own S with both hands and a map right now. Stainless doesn’t rust. On that note, it’s worth pointing out that the very first airliners were deathtraps too. Once again, it’s a chicken-egg thing. Rockets don’t have airliner-like reliability because they don’t have airliner-like logged hours because they don’t have airliner-like reliability. Or cost. Both of which SS is being built to address. If Starship is eventually flying multiple times a day, then the hours needed to problem solve and reach that kind of reliability can actually be achieved, and Starship won’t be flying any great numbers of people until it’s demonstrated that kind of reliability.

Man, they just can’t catch a break on those FH center cores... But that would explain all the work that’s being done on the other drone ship in Florida lately.

Whew. Now that’s what you call knocking it outta the park— via a line drive just over the pitcher’s head, right past the shortstop, and through the backboard. Then beaning the shady hotdog guy for good measure. Thought this foo was about to get his dang arm ripped off for a moment.

And, it's GOOD!

Boca Chica snow.

...but what we’re actually getting...

Ever have days like this? that pet gate cake from the other room...

At this point they should really just... let it go...

Looks like they’ve been collecting scrapped Falcon stages in the background.

Better than FOOF... @Kerbaloid also, *cough*SOYUZ*coughcough* Which, interestingly enough, goes to the launch pad on rails, which this thread has once again gone entirely off of. *typed from an SUV used mainly for simple commuting. ...if I ever get that Model X I’m getting a sticker that says “I identify as a rusty ol’ farm truck.”

In honor of today’s weather here... been waiting all dang month. *pokes @Lisias with a stick*