CatastrophicFailure

Luckily, Elon Musk’s side job is making autonomous vehicles.

How much to Europa? Enceladus? Titan? Do you hear that still, soft ringing in the distance? That’s SLS’s deathbell if Starship works even half this well.

So this just came thru the twit-pipe... Apparently, and most ironically, expendable Starships might eventually be a thing. But not that daft if they really can just slap them together in a few weeks in an open field. What’s described sounds even less complicated than the StarHopper.

This thing and the Falcon Heavy static firing at once would sure be a PR tour de force. Ain’t gonna happen, but still...

Compare and contrast this launch and the previous, 1000 words, write an essay considering the symbolism of the back vs the white of the rocket’s flank, 1000 words, and analyze the webcast according to Explication de Texte, 3000 words... aaaaaaand now I’m having an anxiety attack. So, SO glad I’m not in school anymore...

50 minutes ish. Rmember, they have a narrow sub-window within that window to launch without hitting something. Y’know, like India the other day...

Shrödinger’s launch day.

Looks like Restricted Mode content is managed by YouTube directly. However, there is a page to give feedback over stuff that ought not be blocked, and nothing SpaceX seems an obvious violation of their constraints.

It took me a while.

Figures. It’s just Pudding Day in the cafeteria, idin’ it? No idea. Someone willing to sort through reams of virtual govt paperwork could probably find out, tho.

The impression I got was that the paperwork for the other two flights has already been filed. They gotta have FCC approval for all of them.

So, probably nothing, but I know a guy who knows a guy who works at BO, who implies there may be something significant happening very shortly. In more confirmable news, I read that BO has now filed regulatory paperwork for NS flight 13 in July. Flights 11 and 12 haven’t happened yet. Would indicate rather a brisk pace, tho... ah, here that is...

Still Waiting, ferociously....

Also relevant: Sound like FH might actually be overkill for STP-2, but man, that’ll be bad-S!

Psst...

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. There are neither beginnings nor ends, and All Things Serve the Beam... But if March could stop kicking me inna fork, that’d be great. Yet the words are once more flowing again, if slowly. Here’s a preview gag that may or may not make the final cut, utterly devoid of context.

If heat rejection is the goal, rather than a “barbecue roll” like Apollo, etc, would it not actually be better to keep the shiny side pointed at the sun, reflecting most of that heat away? Engines to the sun seems more like a deep-space thing to reduce radiation exposure.

[sad beep]

See, this is the thing about that. If a Starship is at end-of-life, that means it's no longer structurally sound. Engines, mechanicals, life support, that can all be replaced. Just like a ship or aircraft, it's being retired because the hull is no longer worth using. Not exactly a good foundation for a space station. Just sayin.

Hmm. Could you maybe use the ISS as a baseline to check the numbers? IIRC that tops out around -4 in perfect conditions.

Yup. That's where a good chunk of the heat rejection will come from, IIRC.

*pokes @cubinator resident math whiz*

I was just looking up ISS passes and it hit me... no, not the ISS, or I wouldn’t be typing this ... with such a reflective surface, and being so huge, could the Starship potentially outshine the Space Station?

There wouldn't be much, point tho, I'm afraid. The term gets tossed around like some holy grail, but it's just not that important. Starship might be able to SSTO, but with no payload, and more importantly, without enough fuel to get back. So they'd essentially be throwing the vessel away and creating a huge piece of space junk, for little gain other than a mild "gee whiz" factor.

Confirmed, no hopping today.