CatastrophicFailure

It’s like 85 degrees there right now.

We do this now, after a fact. It’s called a nuclear submarine.

Good Kerm, I forget how painful he is to watch live.

Batten down the hatches, tweetstorm incoming!!!

Heeeeeeyyyyy yoooouuuu guuuuuuuuuuys, the thread’s unlocked! *obnoxious clicking* oooh, new page!

Aaaaaaand delayed 15 minutes.

Eek to that. Even if the landing leg spread is much wider than we’ve seen, with something that tall and with great big sails at the very top, that seems like a recipe for disaster. Of the “wow, we really should have seen that coming” sort, not the “no one predicted this and we learned so much” sort. Thermodynamics does not work like that. They’d need to use liquid helium.

See, now I have a very hard time envisioning a world where SLS and Starship coexist for any length of time. More-so SLS, Starship, and New Glenn. Just pulling numbers outta my patoot, Starship can do 90% of what SLS can for 10% of the cost. Even politically, i think it becomes very difficult to keep justifying that, especially if Starship is doing so once a month while SLS flies once a year.

This is how Starship will beat SLS into space and elsewhere, I think. SpaceX can afford to fail. They can afford to fail hard, and spectacularly, and as such are probably expecting it. And you learn more from failing. Regardless of funding, SLS must proceed at its snail’s pace because it absolutely cannot fail. Every single thing must be checked, checked, and umptoople-checked again such that any testing is only verifying whats’s already known. A major failure would be disastrous, a “liberated turbine wheel” on the test stand, even if the core isn’t a complete loss, could set the program back a year, or years. And if the core were lost at any point...

The further out one pushes the metric, the more likely for SpaceX to get there first, I think. I think it’s highly unlikely that SLS flies before 2021—a major problem during the Green Run tests would be devastating—so that gives SpaceX a fair amount of time to turn Starship into something functional, a good year and a half at least. I wouldn’t put it past them to send one around the moon if they can, just because they can. It would be some great data, after all. Even if there’s no crew on board, or even accommodations for crew, that’s a huge slap in the face. Stretch things out three more years, and NASA will still be farting around with a tollbooth and a tiny lander while SpaceX’s “lander” is already most of the way there, and with plenty of actual flight data, too. And if they pull off Dear Moon in that time...

Our resident New Mexican tuber hits it right on the head here. Maybe even Bridn Bidan Brahnk-n-shteen sees the writing on the walls, now. If Starship is successful, if it becomes an operational system, SLS is obsolete overnight. Even in the current political system, there will simply be no way to justify its cost if SpaceX can deliver dozens, even a hundred tons directly to the lunar surface for a bare fraction. And Kerm forbid if Starship does this or even reaches orbit before SLS ever launches. The statement is a very, er, diplomatic way of saying to Shelby, “y’all better make dang sure we get the funding we need to reach the moon by 2024, or your constituents may be out of a job. And if they are, guess who follows.... AND... it may already be too late.”

His reaction when Starship puts a payload in orbit before SLS even sees the pad should be... interesting. Curse you, Like Drought of 2019.

Don’t worry, they left them an escape hatch: An escape ladder, however...

Hmm... I wonder if it could do a little dance like the Model X?

I canard-ly wait to see the finished product!

Mildly interesting: Also, I now need a Pygmy Falcon.

I wouldn’t doubt it ends up looking like that, but the parts we’ve seen don’t seem right. They’re not wide enough and too tall and sharp. Isn’t a sharp edge into the airstream hotter on reentry than a rounded curve?

Aha! That bit definitely looks like it would fit in front of the fins like here:

Wait, what? Which thing? What thing? Be specific, man! There are a great many things in play today.

Musk did mention that the legs would be mounted such that there’s room created for an extra few engines. Definitely looks more like chines or such, seems the wrong proportion for a fin.

MOAR ferociter!

“We may experience some slight turbulence and then, er...”

Dang... must be hot up there... like sitting on a giant steel plate out in the Texas sun. Oh, wait...

IKR. This like quarantine is giving me physical pain.

Likes are still broken, so here’s a Tesla with a great big fluffy puppy in the frunk. ETA: hmmm... maybe Boca’s finally gonna get that Supercharger Everyday Astronaut has been begging for...