Elthy

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.

I propose we split it up in another way: One for normal discussion about SpaceX, one where someone brings up the same stuff every page. The second one is propably better suited for "Forum Games"...

Those shockwaves on the 33 engine static fire are insane. Seeing that i cant imagine any structure to survive that up close, im even impressed with the drone not falling from the sky...

From what i remember Musk has full decivice rights regarding SpaceX, noone would be able to stop Starship without convinging him to do that (or him running out of money).

That would propably require a friction-less system. Its propable that the expended gas isnt enough to move the same volume of fuel through some more or less complex piping system.

Is it realy? The volumes they want to transfer at some point are huge, hundrets of cubic meters. Even with some big fuel connectors this will take some time, requiring lots of delta-v to provide the acceleration. I could only imagine a hybrid solution, ullage to provide e.g. 0.01g so the propelant is settled during the transfer while the actual transfer happens with strong pumps, keeping the time under acceleration to a minimum.

Another thing regarding space-based power would be the energy required to get something up there. I currently dont have the time to calculate it, but the thousands of tons of propellant for one launch equal a lot of energy. It will propably take a realy long time for both PV or nuclear power to just generate the energy that was used in getting them up there.

Wow, those 33 engines firing together are beautiful. A friend of mine tried to watch it on Youtube and found an "official" stream, he only became suspicios as Elon Musk tried to sell him cryptocurrency. At that point the real lanuch was already over...

They can build 3 second stages a week because they dont have to build mnay first stages, including engines.

where did you see any excavation? I only saw lots of vapor, nothing to assess the pad structure...

Dont forget the temperature. A blowtorch can cut through steel even though its pressure is in the range of canned air. This will also complicate things with water-cooling, superheavy will literarely vaporize tons of water per second. All that steam will add to the dynamic pressures below the pad.

To bad they sold them.

They propably have to reconsider their whole approach, maybe go for a traditional launchpad like LC-39 with lots of water. A reusable rocket is of no use if the launchpad isnt reusable... Thats what i thought, too. Looks like failing engines took out controls/hydraulics, just like N1.

At launch. But 100t less dry mass will have an extreme impact on delta-v, resulting in an early burnout of the second stage. Either they will have lots of fuel left (which they propably cant vent during the half orbit they are doing) or they start with less than full fuel tanks, which will be more than just 2% of the mass at liftoff.