Ongoing SpaceX Thread

[Dan02]

That has to be one of the biggest engineering achievements in human history. They honestly made it look effortless.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1845516250388254726

[activeStick]

Yeah saw the video earlier. The science, math, and tech to do that would be ridiculous.

[btimbit]

That's absolutely incredible. Wow

[Snuffleupagus]

Elon Musk is an evil genius, wish he would stick to the stuff that made him the wealthiest person on earth.

[Bigtime]

They've got another Starship launch planned for today, wonder if they can go 2 for 2 on catching the booster?

[Fuzz]

With any luck it crashes into Mar-a-Lago.

[DownInFlames]

They’re going to try relighting the engines in space, which will be necessary to enable orbital refueling. They are soooo far away from putting people on the moon.

[photon]

Finally got a chance to watch it. They aborted the booster catch, which I guess makes sense if everything isn't 100% perfect as they only have the single orbital launch mount currently and destroying that would be a big set back. They did a hover landing into the ocean.

The ship reentry was pretty cool, they did it in daylight this time so a lot more was visible. Apparently this was an old heat shield design and it still seems like it did better than last time with only one obvious burn through on the flaps. They did a vertical landing into the ocean with that as well.

Very cool seeing reentry all the way through, the speed it was going past the clouds during the early reentry phase was crazy.

[activeStick]

Wonder if Trump Jr. attended again and got caught on camera doing gummies?

https://twitter.com/user/status/1859068380357034337

[GullFoss]

https://timex.ca/products/pride-calg...ames-twzhflamy

[Bigtime]

Ugh, so they caught Starship's booster for a second time, but Starship itself blew up in the ascent and threw debris all over the Caribbean, leading to commercial flight holds and diversions and some footage coming out:

https://bsky.app/profile/jonostrower.../3lfvihkegop2o

https://imgur.com/a/ZH6HNkt

https://twitter.com/user/status/1880027458642350095

[Fuzz]

https://bsky.app/profile/parkermollo.../3lfvnxkpjvc2k

[spetch]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Ugh, so they caught Starship's booster for a second time, but Starship itself blew up in the ascent and threw debris all over the Caribbean, leading to commercial flight holds and diversions and some footage coming out:

https://bsky.app/profile/jonostrower.../3lfvihkegop2o

https://imgur.com/a/ZH6HNkt

https://twitter.com/user/status/1880027458642350095

Wondered what happened there, just got off the icon and heard people talking about comets, stars etc.

[Fuzz]

I hadn't realized just to get to the moon they need around 10 fuelling flights, either to the ship or a fuelling depot that doesn't exist yet. Meanwhile, Musk is saying one of these things, that has yet to achieve a full orbit in low earth atmosphere, will be on it's way to Mars next year.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said his Starship rocket will head to Mars by the end of next year, as the company investigates several recent explosions in flight tests.
Human landings could begin as early as 2029 if initial missions go well, though "2031 was more likely", he added in a post on his social media platform X.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2g88y52y8o


Even more likely is 2041. Any manned Mars mission not containing human waste is going to require a lot of fuel to get the launch vehicle off of Mars. The moon has 16% Earth gravity, Mars has 38%. This isn't trivial to overcome. This is a lot of fuel. Any talk of getting to Mars with humans this decade or next is about as real as your car driving across the country without human input, coming in 2017. But it's got him a lot of government money!

[Locke]

Matt Damon managed it just fine!

[Fuzz]

Matt Damon had the luxury of a sci-fi writer that could make anything happen, no matter how unrealistic. Musk gets most of his ideas from Sci-fi. The fiction part is the tripwire he keeps hitting.


Ok, a little cynical, I think a lot of what he says he will do will happen one day. The issue is a lot of those are decades off, not two weeks .

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Matt Damon had the luxury of a sci-fi writer that could make anything happen, no matter how unrealistic. Musk gets most of his ideas from Sci-fi. The fiction part is the tripwire he keeps hitting.

Ok, a little cynical, I think a lot of what he says he will do will happen one day. The issue is a lot of those are decades off, not two weeks .

Ok. Now my turn because 'cynical' is kind of my turf.

I agree with you in principle. Some of those things may happen. But not by Musk. The guy is a snake-oil salesman. He doesnt do any of the innovating. He doesnt do any of the work.

What he should be doing is sitting back, shutting the fata up, and handing gobs of cash to real innovators.

Otherwise? He can stick with STFU. Most of the effluvia that exits that clown's mouth is unreal. If they made a mini-golf putt with Musk's mouth it'd be so huge you'd have to start from hundreds of yards away.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I hadn't realized just to get to the moon they need around 10 fuelling flights, either to the ship or a fuelling depot that doesn't exist yet. Meanwhile, Musk is saying one of these things, that has yet to achieve a full orbit in low earth atmosphere, will be on it's way to Mars next year.



https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2g88y52y8o


Even more likely is 2041. Any manned Mars mission not containing human waste is going to require a lot of fuel to get the launch vehicle off of Mars. The moon has 16% Earth gravity, Mars has 38%. This isn't trivial to overcome. This is a lot of fuel. Any talk of getting to Mars with humans this decade or next is about as real as your car driving across the country without human input, coming in 2017. But it's got him a lot of government money!

It’s easier to get to mars if you don’t plan on coming back.

[Wormius]

I kind of have to agree with Neil de Grasse Tyson on this. Manned missions to Mars, what’s the point? What are we going to find out that we haven’t already? Kind of a waste of the limited resources we already have on this planet.

[photon]

Sending rovers means you have very limited and specific scientific tests you can perform where a manned mission means more flexibility to pursue broader research or adapt to unexpected discoveries to change what's being researched. Assuming a broad enough suite of materials/tools are sent along to allow that. Finding convincing evidence of life for example would be pretty revolutionary and depending on what was found could vastly improve our understanding of some things.

There's also the general benefit of technological advancements that benefit things other than the space missions, but that probably also applies to just going to the moon and building a semi-permanent base.

Probably the most compelling is the simplest "because we can".. it's very inspirational and motivating, hard to put a dollar cost on doing cool things just for the sake of doing them.