Elthy

The bell seemed fine for most of the flight. I guess it was damaged by something else, e.g. some foreign object in the fuel lines that got stuck there and thus disabled the cooling on this small part, leading to a meltthrough.

And about the volume/complexity. There is no easy place to stick them: The engine bay is cramped (at least when they go for six vacuum raptors) and would only allow tinylegs (like on the non orbital versions). And on the outside (like Falcon 9) the legs would require extra shielding for reenty...

That video gives a good sense of scale, it always seems smaller in those landing videos.

https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/emerging-technologies/reaction-engines-folds-after-funding-shortfall Cant say this is unexpected, as they allways seemed way to ambitious without a billionaire funding them for fun. But still sad, as their dreams powered countless SSTOs in KSP...

We are back, finaly! One thing that happened during the outage: SpaceX posted a video of the landing of starship: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/1g6rio6/ship_30_performing_the_flip_and_burn_manoeuvre_in/ Edit: And just as i was posting this, another 502 -.-

Didnt at least one Falcon 9 explode after a "soft" landing because it tipped over due to failing landing legs? I would honestly be suprised if Superheavy didnt explode after tipping over.

This comment gives a tl:dr for the video. I think, havent watched it myself

Thats not good. Even the shuttle could take a few lost tiles, and hat both a higher ballistic coefficient and an aluminium structure, which has less resistance to heat than the stainless steel. I wonder if the internal pressure of the tanks is to blame, as it could greatly decrease the tolerance for softening of the steel before catastrophic failure...

I wonder if we will see testing in a vacuum chamber, im curious how flexible it is under pressure.

How long is the nova gonna last?

Damn, Starship did just what every other rocket did for decades: Splashdown of the first stage, destructive reentry for the second, both at predetermined spots...

Interessting to see that it actualy exploded in the air, not on impact. At those speeds its about 1 second difference, was hard to tell from the video. I hope they will release footage of the booster as its comming down, but im not sure if they have any. Afaik it was out of view from the land, so only a plane could have captured it, right?

Lol, the huge gaps make it look realy improvised, like an old yard gate...

I think there are lots of possible solutions without altering the hardware, e.g. different timings on valves or a stagered restart of the engines.