Falcon Heavy, one of the best launchers of all time goes up today.(and other Space News)

[manikyath]

16 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

The fundamentals of physics apply to every other physical science and engineering problem.

yes, and my ICT education also applies to rockets because they have computers onboard, still gives me no right to wildly suggest that the official statements about IFT2 are not telling the truth.

19 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Starship is not dubious in that way at all.  It is just trying to solve an already solved engineering problem in a way that no one else has gotten to work.  The advantages of it are well known but there is a reason big rockets that got us to the moon had relatively few big engines not an N1 worth of small ones. 

oh lord, we really *are* back to page 4...

- we currently fly to ISS with 27 engines, the larger number of smaller engines is not a problem.

- N1's problem was not the number of engines, it was the reliability of the first stage engines (presumably not aided by the relative crudity of the engine control or lack thereof)

- we have had only one design of crewed flight to the moon.. saying that this way is then somehow the only correct solution is incredibly shallow. if the rest of the world was like you we'd still be going to work with a horse and cart, because that whole steam business is just too complicated.

- the reason starship is part of artemis, is because NASA has no other choice - they realisticly cannot do it on their own due to cost reasons.

- before falcon 9, that exact sort of statements were made about the idea of reusable rockets. the *only* reason i'm here suggesting that SpaceX will be able to make the unlikely soluition is because they've proven they are capable of things other rocket manufacturers cant / dont want to try.

 

27 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

My bias isn't against Space X it is for Artemis.  Anything messing up Artemis is bad. 

without starship artemis would have been either cancelled, or even more hilareously overbudget and delayed. i agree that it would make far more sense to get to the moon with a single rocket that wouild have far less moving parts - but likewise artemis is about more than "getting to the moon", part of the goal is putting "more than a tin can with 3 humans" on the moon. apollo was way ahead of it's time in many ways.. but also very much not in equally many ways. if you really look into *what* they were flying with, it's mindblowing that they even made it at all.

 

let me put it in a clarkson quote.. not exactly "matching the theme", but it does describe the difference in ideology between apollo and artemis:

Quote

let's see how comfortable we can get to the north pole.

 

32 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

If the problem is not fuel slosh which can be fixed with some reengineering of the fuel tanks, which Space X seems to have done (and may have to do more of...) then there is an even bigger problem with the fueling system that is the root cause of this rocket blowing up.   With an accompanying separate problem in the upper stage. 

 

The lOX venting many of you mentioned is with the upper stage.  

The booster has a totally different problem. 

 

The timeline of fixing this is not a big deal for pure SpaceX fans.  Fans of Artemis which is of STRATEGIC IMPORATNCE to the United States of America. 

the timeline for fixing this is "on IFT3" - that's what rapid prototyping gets you.

and because you seem to be at least mildly misinformed...

- fuel slosh is an issue that is completely isolated to the booster and RTLS, which is not critical for artemis, because it is an issue *after* staging. this is essentially analog to the landing attempts of falcon 9. they could be blowing up every booster they use for artemis during RTLS, and it would have zero impact on artemis itself.

- likewise, the issue with the booster that happened in IFT2 (filter blockage) happened after staging, at this point it can be stated that the booster has had "as many" successful flights as the first stage of artemis, because neither rocket was recovered after staging. it just so happens that SpaceX plans to recover their booster, which is a very complicated 'dance' to figure out. - a recent NSF quote is suitable here: "There are many unknown unknowns."

- the issue that occured with starship has more factors to it. the fuel dump was defenately a major aspect, but past that this test has also shown that the engine bay needed more protections in place (because they added them, we can assume that IFT2 showed they were necessary). for more details i refer back to page 12.

 

with this i also want to add this brilliant NSF quote:

"you can like more than one rocket".

 

the only person here who is preferring one rocket over the other is you. i'm not a "fan" of spacex, i'm not a "fan" of NASA. i like seeing technology happen. wether it's SpaceX, rocketlab, or anyone else.. makes no difference to me.

 

as for the strategic importance... i'll repeat again - NASA does not have the means to do this by themselves. the fact they can rely on commercial partners to do things cheaper, faster, iterate, redesign, blow up a prototype and keep going.. means that this programme you so dearly want to happen has more chance to actually happen in a timely manner.

 

and just to refresh your timeline, just on the NASA side:

- the idea to return to the moon was conceived in 2005

- in 2009 it was deemed that the plans as they existed were too costly to make sense.

- in 2010 plans for a new heavy lift rocket were announced, to be ready by 2015, and ready to do crewed missions to martian orbit by the 2030's

- artemis 1 was intended to launch in 2016, but was pushed back to 2021, and eventually 2022

- between 2017 and 2020 a whole bunch of plan shuffling happened. i cba to list all that out

- in 2020 NASA awarded the contract to the given partners for HLS. (the other day NSF talked about just how late in the programme this happened, it's worth a watch.)

- in 2021 NASA specificly awarded the HLS contract to SpaceX, after which the blue origin lawsuit happened, and some court nonsense happened. as it goes with public entities unfortunately... (not a stab at NASA, even the belgian bus network has to deal with this..)

- in 2022 they finally got artemis 1 up. good on them, only 6 years late.

- they plan to launch their crewed mission in 2026

 

while i agree that getting starship as polished as falcon 9 by 2026 is a VERY tight goal.. i do think that starship will reach production readiness before a theoretical "fully NASA-only" misson could be executed. and like you said - having this happen in a timely manner is of strategic importance.

 

as for the references to NSF i've made in this post, they all come from this livestream:

 

[wanderingfool2]

6 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

With an accompanying separate problem in the upper stage. 

 

The lOX venting many of you mentioned is with the upper stage.  

The booster has a totally different problem. 

 

Congratulations, it took you only 3 pages to acknowledge that...now if you can only admit that fuel slosh was not the reason it failed to reach orbit

 

Say it with me, the booster failing in IFT-2 was mutually exclusive from not achieving their sub-orbital velocities.

 

6 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

It is just trying to solve an already solved engineering problem in a way that no one else has gotten to work.

It's like the ICE people who are yelling that vehicles have already been solved and no one has ever managed to make an EV semi work.

 

You fail to grasp the justification, if we made all buildings to withstand all major earthquakes, tornados, floods etc, we could do so...but the cost of the house and practicality of the house would be too much.  Your so called "solved" engineering is exactly that; even if you assume the best case scenario the cheapest you can get for Earth to LEO is $2,9000/kg.

 

They aren't engineering it to just bring payload to orbit, they are engineering it so the COST of bringing payload to orbit is reduced.  Even if you assume 100T, and fully expendable Starship you , the cost to build will be $200m [the cost actually appears to be $100m, but lets say they add 2x markup]...that's $2,000/kg.  If they can save the booster and Starship (even if it costs $50m to refurb with a 2x markup...which it won't), you get close to $1,000/kg.  That's a drastic reduction.

 

So tell me, do you think it's truly a solved problem when their target is affordable travel to orbit?  Name one competitor to it that costs even remotely near what the eventual cost to orbit will be.

 

Also, the whole "no one else has gotten to work" is because no one has even really tried what they are doing [And no you cannot compare it to N1 because the goal is completely different]

 

7 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

My bias isn't against Space X it is for Artemis.  Anything messing up Artemis is bad. 

By that definition then SLS has already messed it up bad.  After all, as @manikyath has pointed out (and I've pointed out); Artemis 1 was supposed to already have flown [even before Starship HLS entered the bidding process].

 

7 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

So far all the things I have discussed about which people have been trying to tell me I don't know what I am talking about

Because to put it frankly you make stupid comments that shows you don't know what you are talking about.

Here's some quotes of yours, which are categorically wrong

  

On 2/25/2024 at 2:11 AM, Uttamattamakin said:

Right now Starship has not gotten on gram to orbit.  This is because of fuel sloshing around in that huge tank. 

So wrong

  

On 2/25/2024 at 3:42 PM, Uttamattamakin said:

I get it you take Elons words and Space X press realeses as gospel.  I am going by what I saw in the data. The line that they almost got to orbit but for not having a payload makes no sense.  NONE.   Surely they would've factored that in. 

Again, wrong and extremely stupid essentially saying that the official releases are wrong [This one is you essentially pitting your knowledge against people who ACTUALLY do it for a living.

 

On 3/2/2024 at 12:05 AM, Uttamattamakin said:

You both just told me how Artemis I was not a test and so it not blowing up is not impressive.    

Still haven't shown a quote where I said it wasn't a test...again showing you aren't using an ounce of critical thinking

 

 

 

Now onto more of your whole business

7 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

If the problem is not fuel slosh which can be fixed with some reengineering of the fuel tanks, which Space X seems to have done (and may have to do more of...) then there is an even bigger problem with the fueling system that is the root cause of this rocket blowing up

It could easily have been a slosh baffle that needed more structural support falling off and blocking the filter...or it could have been what I mentioned early and having a water hammer being the cause of the filter issue [during hotstaging].  Both of which can be relatively easily fixed

 

7 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

The advantages of it are well known but there is a reason big rockets that got us to the moon had relatively few big engines not an N1 worth of small ones

Older engines required electroplating for what amounted to months at a time....and required fine tuning to make sure they didn't create any unwanted oscillations (things that can all be accounted for now with newer technology).  The addition of multiple engines back in the day would mean that the chance of creating a failure one would be higher (and back then it would mean having to wait literal months for a replacement).  Engines on Starship can literally be swapped out in a day, which makes a lot of the points moot.

 

Again, as it was been pointed out, Falcon Heavy has 27 engines; under your asinine logic Falcon Heavy should be using just a few larger engines instead.

 

The basic fact is there are benefits and negatives to using a bunch of smaller engines...but in this case the rapid manufacturing of engines allows for better quality controls and a massive reduction in eventual cost.

 

 

I do mean this seriously, let any of your colleagues read what you have written here from day one and ask them if you are wrong.

[Lunar River]

 

good thing they don't know what they're doing.

[Uttamattamakin]

13 hours ago, Lunar River said:

 

good thing they don't know what they're doing.

Space X is to rockets as Tesla is to Cars.  

This graphic is like comparing the history of Ford motor company to Tesla and saying look Tesla could've done what Ford did. 

[manikyath]

14 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Space X is to rockets as Tesla is to Cars.  

This graphic is like comparing the history of Ford motor company to Tesla and saying look Tesla could've done what Ford did. 

except in this case SpaceX is the disruptor *and* the mass producer. that's the very point of the image. the supposed "known values" are dwarved in number by the relatively "inexperienced and small" disruptor.

 

this graphic would be like tesla v other cars if tesla sold half a billion cybertrucks, and ford sold a douzen... that's not the case.

 

i dont just disagree that spacex v other rockets is like tesla v other cars.. i'd dare state the opposite.

 

tesla is a "halo tier" brand of luxury cars, supposedly on par with mercedes, BMW, audi, etc.

 

in this analogy, spaceX is the cheaper "but not quite cheapest" option.. or to put it in car brands:

- rocketlab is your "kia" - cheap but functional.

- SpaceX is your "volkswagen" level of car.. more than the "cheapskate brand" but still a budget-friendly option.

- launching with a government entity is your halo tier.. you're essentially guaranteed of success, but at a steep cost.

 

we're entering a world where there's cost tiers of launch providers, because to some entities having 99.9% chance of making it off the pad is enough compared to 99.9999% at 1000x the cost.

 

on that note.. what's your opinion on rocketlab?

[Uttamattamakin]

7 hours ago, manikyath said:

except in this case SpaceX is the disruptor *and* the mass producer. that's the very point of the image. the supposed "known values" are dwarved in number by the relatively "inexperienced and small" disruptor.

 

I was thinking about how that meme ignore that government funded space programs laid the foundations upon which Space X built.  Space X was able to do what it did because of the whole economy that was constructed, the infrastructure put in place to support, a company like that existing.   While government space programs had  to start developing all of it at a time when ...  like steam powered trains were still in use and Jet planes didn't exist yet. 

 

Just as Ford had to build a auto industry when people were still riding horse and buggy.  You know.  Yeah it took them a long time to hit milestones.  They started from dirt trails.  

7 hours ago, manikyath said:

- rocketlab is your "kia" - cheap but functional.

 

I can see that 

7 hours ago, manikyath said:

 

on that note.. what's your opinion on rocketlab?

Let me think rocket lab rocketlab I'll admit I did look up the numbers 39 successes 4 failures with their Electron rocket.  Not bad. 

IF I worked at a more research focused school it'd be cool to get some grant money and build a small sat with my students and have it as part of the payload on one of their missions.   IMHO small satellites are where the future is for cheap access to space.  

 

I just hope that the economy can support having a company like that in the mix.  It seems like in space one either goes big or goes home. 

[wanderingfool2]

IFT-3 is likely to be Thursday if the FAA grants the license on time; the explosives are already installed and full WDR has been completed (they greatly decreased the propellant load times)

 

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-3

Quote

Starship’s second flight test achieved a number of major milestones and provided invaluable data to continue rapidly developing Starship. Each of these flight tests continue to be just that: a test. They aren’t occurring in a lab or on a test stand, but are putting flight hardware in a flight environment to maximize learning.

The sub-orbital trajectory has changed in order to accommodate the tests they wish to conduct in space.  It seems like this time they have a large confidence that they will achieve sub-orbital numbers; as the amount that they have put into the Starship upper stage is quite a bit more than has been seen in the past [along with the change in trajectory]

 

The biggest thing with the trajectory change is likely due to relighting an engine in space.  While it's not mentioned, the trajectory gives a larger window in case things go wrong on the relight [like if it fails it will come down over the ocean still].  One speculation as well is that the fuel transfer they do could also show that an engine can be relight from the transferred fuel...but maybe not.

 

One thing to note, the payload doors are not welded shut this time, which could be a potential for excitement on lift-off/stage separation/max-q.  The reason being that it's speculated the doors were welded shut on IFT-2 because they were working out the structural supports needed to not crush the starship.  So if there is to be a failure pre-engine cut off I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up being a cause....so yea my guess it would be t+52 seconds where the payload doors will show if they have been sufficiently supported.

 

It should be noted though, there is a high confidence of it reaching sub-orbital velocity...but there is a really good chance at it breaking apart during re-entry [assuming everything goes right up to that point].  The reason being that the heat-shield tiles iirc are on an earlier mounting mechanism on this version still...but if it survives it (or even if it doesn't) SpaceX will hopefully be able to start gathering data on how hot the stainless steel on the belly gets to [and at what point it fails with how many tiles missing].

 

 

It's expected, but as far as I can tell not confirmed that they will just do a bellyflop into the ocean [as opposed to attempting a soft-landing followed by having to blow it up to sink it].  It's most likely though as they don't mention trying to relight the engines for landing.

[Uttamattamakin]

17 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

 

One thing to note, the payload doors are not welded shut this time, which could be a potential for excitement on lift-off/stage separation/max-q.  The reason being that it's speculated the doors were welded shut on IFT-2 because they were working out the structural supports needed to not crush the starship.  So if there is to be a failure pre-engine cut off I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up being a cause....so yea my guess it would be t+52 seconds where the payload doors will show if they have been sufficiently supported.

 

Great post on this.  Lots of chances for excitement on this one.  I just hope for a boring flight where it does everything with 100% success.  Artemis needs that, Dear Moon needs that.  

That said I would enjoy another BUSTED video from Thunderf00t on the subject.  He gets immoral beastial pleasure out of busting on Elon Musk.  I love it.   Not as much as I'd love successful US Moon missions though. 

[wanderingfool2]

4 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

I just hope for a boring flight where it does everything with 100% success. 

Heat shield is unlikely to work correctly, so likely burn up on reentry.  I think future ones have a better mounting mechanism.  3 Starlink sats on it though to test no blackout zone/data until it burns up.

 

The amount they are testing there will most likely be many things wrong with it, and the baydoors pose more of an issue than I think SpaceX is letting on.

 

There is already a company though that has designed something to fit inside the starship eventually that can do lunar payload injections without refill though.

 

4 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

That said I would enjoy another BUSTED video from Thunderf00t on the subject.  He gets immoral beastial pleasure out of busting on Elon Musk.  I love it.   Not as much as I'd love successful US Moon missions though. 

ThunderF00t lacks the integrity to really talk about any of his "BUSTED" videos.  He cherry picks numbers, and straight up changes numbers in his favor while claiming the actual numbers don't really matter for his demonstration [except he ignores that using the actual numbers changes his calculations in favor of SpaceX]

[dalekphalm]

12 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

That said I would enjoy another BUSTED video from Thunderf00t on the subject.  He gets immoral beastial pleasure out of busting on Elon Musk.  I love it.   Not as much as I'd love successful US Moon missions though. 

I absolutely cannot stand Thunderf00t. Every video I've ever watched of his left an extremely bad taste in my mouth from the way he presents things, to the way he picks his data, and everything in between. He's been shown to be wrong on multiple occasions.

 

Listen, I think most people dislike Elon Musk. Personally I think he's a huge AH and I can't stand him, especially his views personally on many subjects. But he isn't SpaceX, even though he owns it. SpaceX is doing incredible work for the commercial space industry.

[Uttamattamakin]

9 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Heat shield is unlikely to work correctly, so likely burn up on reentry.  I think future ones have a better mounting mechanism.  3 Starlink sats on it though to test no blackout zone/data until it burns up.

That's a much more understandable issue at this point.  They aren't meaning to recover the thing.   Maybe I am remembering wrong at first weren't they proposing a heatshield system that involved it ... sweating fuel or something as a way to cool it without ceramic tiles?     That was a thing at some point. 

 

9 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

As longas it does not detonate for any reason at any point that will right now ... count as a real rip roaring success.   Impact the ocean 3/4 of the way around the world sure.  Just not before then. 

 

9 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

 

ThunderF00t lacks the integrity to really talk about any of his "BUSTED" videos.  He cherry picks numbers, and straight up changes numbers in his favor while claiming the actual numbers don't really matter for his demonstration [except he ignores that using the actual numbers changes his calculations in favor of SpaceX]

This is because unlike us here the real numbers SCARE people.  

 

 

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

I absolutely cannot stand Thunderf00t. Every video I've ever watched of his left an extremely bad taste in my mouth from the way he presents things, to the way he picks his data, and everything in between. He's been shown to be wrong on multiple occasions.

 

Really when?  I am sure he is not infallible. 

 

He talks about things the same way Hawking did in his book "A Brief History of time".    Remember the average person doesn't really work with numbers over the cost of their house or car at most.  100'000's are about the limit.  When making videos a small SMALL group will want copious detailed numbers a much large group are like. 

 

Hawking only used one equation E=Mc^2  and round numbers in that book. 

 

Anyway, what I take pleasure in is HOW he talks about busting Elon.  The way most people talk about ... something else you know.  He enjoys it way too much.  It's almost NSFW. 

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

 

Listen, I think most people dislike Elon Musk. Personally I think he's a huge AH and I can't stand him, especially his views personally on many subjects. But he isn't SpaceX, even though he owns it. SpaceX is doing incredible work for the commercial space industry.

Yeah they are. They have achieved great things. Like Boeing has.  

Like Boeing they are kinda screwing up right now though.  They need a completely successful IFT-3.   Lots of people think this way. 
 

Also an INTRIGUING view from him. 

What if NASA had the same budget as percentage of the budget as it did during Apollo.  Would Starship actually still be a better rocket than SLS.    Now HE LOVES SpaceX.  HE LOVES starship, but listen to the man. 
 

 

[wanderingfool2]

58 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

This is because unlike us here the real numbers SCARE people.  

No, it's because he enters into things assuming he's right and thus cherry picks/manipulates numbers in an idiotic fashion that make his numbers come out in his favor [because if the "real number SCARE people" then he wouldn't have mentioned the real numbers earlier in some of his videos, but proceeded to use absolutely wrong numbers].

 

Oh also, I'll go into detail below but he uses those "real numbers" in another video to mislead.

 

He lacks the basic understanding of how businesses work.

 

1 hour ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Anyway, what I take pleasure in is HOW he talks about busting Elon.  The way most people talk about ... something else you know.  He enjoys it way too much.  It's almost NSFW. 

Letting biases interfere with fact.  ThunderF00t should be as much believed as a random guy on the street proclaiming the world is going to end with the amount of factual errors he introduces in his videos.  Like I've said before, people speaking as though they are an authority while presenting clearly biased and wrong facts are the worst types of people.

 

When presenting for "busting" if one is to use whole numbers or easy to work with numbers you HAVE to skew them in the favor of your opponents if you want to make a correct logical argument as otherwise you are just playing with errors working in your favor.  Or you need to use actual numbers that is rounded within reason.

 

Here is an example:

~14:14 - Compares what the contract cost as though it's the build cost [shows lack of any knowledge how businesses work]  [i.e. You don't lower your price to customers just because it's cheaper, you lower it when there is competition]

 

16:17 - Tries show "rough" reusability, assumes reusable reduces payload by 1/2 (when he clearly was on the wiki page where you could notice the delta is 4.3 tonnes, given the metric of comparing against a fully filled rocket that's 0.82)

19:14 he ADMITS that it's nearer to 70% number [still off by 12% in his favor], he leaves his calculations based on 50%, but changes .  Even IF we assume things in his favor, 75% is at least a fairer number to assume not 70%...but he goes on to conclude the break even point would be at 6 launches [after assuming reusing costs 40% of build cost].  Even assuming 50% refub cost [in his favor] and 70% payload [number he admitted to, which is greatly in his favor]...that gives, 3...seriously 3 launches.  He was off by a factor of 2x.

 

Actually IF you assume the 40% refub [which he used, but the true numbers from statements appear to be less than 30%], and his admitted 70% payload, you get 2 launches is the break even...2...that's all...or off by a factor of 3x.  Now of course there are other factors in play, but the statement which was shown on screen from Musk states it's 2 maybe 3 when all things are accounted for.

 

So yea, TF made a statement, tried showing the maths, messed putting the numbers into the formula, showed a quote from Musk stating 2 is about break even, but decides to go with the competitors statements of "10", and refuses to acknowledge later that if you used the numbers he even assumed it puts it at 2 launches.

 

He's creating "busted" videos, when he goes on for over 10% of the video about it making major basic level mistakes is not acceptable and shows his utter lack of competency in any of his statements.

 

There's tons of other videos that show his propensity to chose numbers that fit his narrative.

 

Lets not forget:

ThunderF00t's - Talks about boiling a kettle of water, proceeds to calculate the energy to BOIL IT DRY from what I could tell, and uses that as a way to show that the energy method he was busting was flawed.

TF - pulled an image of iirc a logging truck (I'm not going to look up the video) or something similar with a multi-axle and concludes the Tesla Semi won't have realistic carrying capacity. [He also used the wrong sized Jersey barriers, he chose the small ones etc]

TF - Assumed people worried about nuclear contaminants would be just worried about the food being grown next to the radiation [proceeds to put a radioactive rock next to it]...failing to realize people are worried about those minerals and how the plants will incorporate radioactive substances into it's growth.

 

ThunderF00t is essentially a comedy act masquerading as an educational channel

 

[manikyath]

1 hour ago, Uttamattamakin said:

They need a completely successful IFT-3.   Lots of people think this way. 

lots of people think the earth is flat. numbers dont make you correct. not about IFT2, not anout IFT3.

"complete success" is not what you think it is.

 

SpaceX themselves have pressed on the fact that this is a "development test" that just so happens to be in public view instead of in a lab. there's a lot of things they've changed since IFT2, from the very start of the mission things are different:

- they have significantly accelerated prop load.

- there's been a number of redesigns in the engine bays (iirc IFT3 is where they're switching away from hydraulic thrust vector control)

- this is the first flight where the payload bay door is operational, which is a very significant structural change.

 

after staging the booster will do an RTLS flip, but they're not actually returning it to the launch pad. i wouldnt be surprised if they have issues with the booster again. it took them a long time to start landing falcon 9 boosters, i dont expect starship boosters to go quickly. it's also in no way a requirement for artemis for the booster to last beyond staging.

 

the starship will then go on a suborbital trajectory, hopefully completing 3 mission objectives:

- not folding in half because payload bay door.

- do the propellant transfer demo

- do the "lighting a raptor in space" demo

 

and on the way back down they're hoping to collect some information on how well the tiles will deal with the heat, and how much the ship is impacted by tiles that fall off. again.. it would be a surprise if the ship makes it, but that doesnt mean failure - it wasnt meant to make it down.. just so we dont have to argue about that next week...

 

---

 

that aside.. on the thunderf00t thing.. i find his rage quite tiring.. he's made some videos on transport infrastructure (including on hyperloop) that are very right to be extremely critical about the topic... but very often it just feels like he's using the topic to settle some personal vendetta. i guess for me it kinda boils down to "he's often right, but for the wrong reason."

 

i guess to me i cant even bother figuring out if his math is correct, when quite often you can just tell that the only reason he's even treating the topic is because he's got a very strong opinion on the matter, and just wants to prove himself correct in video form. if that's what you want in a channel that's great.. but it's not what i'm looking for.

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

not folding in half because payload bay door.

For some reason this is the thing that scares me the most out of everything....max-q is something like the 50 second mark into the flight so we should know early on at least.

 

Although one of the other things will be how many engines light on the booster...I'm still not confident about all 33 lasting full duration (although if they manage that successfully this time I think cause less worry for myself).  Still one of these tests hopefully they have an engine malfunction (that is none about before) so the mitigation tests can be properly assessed...after all they did put in a measures for cascading failure from a single engine failure.

 

I'm really hoping it makes it to the reentry point because that's where the real massive unknown happens.  A ship like this has never deorbitted and experienced this level of heat with this material...so with failed heat tiles (because lets face it there will be a lot) there should be some extreme heat but the temps the stainless steel can stand are so much higher than the aluminum that others used.  It should be interesting...especially if it makes it to the ocean...if it gets that far then I think things will drastically change because they have proven that even with tile loss it can survive.

 

3 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

That's a much more understandable issue at this point.  They aren't meaning to recover the thing.   Maybe I am remembering wrong at first weren't they proposing a heatshield system that involved it ... sweating fuel or something as a way to cool it without ceramic tiles?     That was a thing at some point. 

That concept hasn't been around since it's infancy when they were still trying to figure out the design.  It was I think deemed impractical or too many variables iirc.

 

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

- there's been a number of redesigns in the engine bays (iirc IFT3 is where they're switching away from hydraulic thrust vector control)

Yea the upper stage will be doing that...the booster had it on IFT-2 as the fires from the hydraulics are thought to have been a big cause of the issue (fuel source)

 

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

after staging the booster will do an RTLS flip, but they're not actually returning it to the launch pad. i wouldnt be surprised if they have issues with the booster again. it took them a long time to start landing falcon 9 boosters, i dont expect starship boosters to go quickly. it's also in no way a requirement for artemis for the booster to last beyond staging.

Yea, not a requirement...still really hopeful otherwise they will lose money on their bid.

 

My guess is 50% chance they get it to water landing this time...but I'm just pulling that number off my gut.  I'm betting even after water landing though it will take them at least 3-4 attempts to have a partial catch on the chopsticks [which will be unfortunate because that's going to massively delay things if things go really wrong]

 

 

 

The biggest thing I hope for on this one though is video footage from the Starship itself, it's going to be launching in bad weather and it will be a pity if all we get is cloud cover shots.

[Uttamattamakin]

Watching this go up but hopefully not blow up. 

 

[Uttamattamakin]

This is one of the best most honest videos I've seen about this.  Small channel but an interesting hypothesis on why it blows up. 

 

[dalekphalm]

So I'm a little bit behind the live stream but Phase 1 went literally perfectly. Launch was seemingly flawless. Hot staging went perfect. Max Q had no visible issues (The Pez Bay door didn't crumple in half).

 

The Booster made the boost back burn, everything looked good for the first part. The second burn did seem to have some issues right before Ocean splash down. I'm not sure what exactly what supposed to happen, but according to the data from the stream, it hit the ocean at something like 1100 km/h, and the relight didn't seem to happen properly. This might have been a telemetry issue or it might have been an actual issue. Either way, this is still a huge success, and none of these issues will affect Artemis.

 

The Starship itself made orbit, and I'm waiting to see how the re-entry goes. Skipping ahead in the live stream - they're waiting for signal with the Starship. There might be some issue with the re-light of the raptors, as it seems like they skipped a burn in orbit. But now the Starship is maneuvering for de-orbit.

 

Damn - the camera feed of the de-orbit is insane. You can see the plasma form in HD. The maneuver doesn't look like it's going properly but I'm going to wait until there's a debrief before I comment on what I'm seeing. It's crazy how the signal is holding strong throughout the re-entry. Looks like they've stabilized. So far so good. Video keeps cutting out but that's expected.

 

Starship was officially lost during re-entry but that was also expected.

[Uttamattamakin]

SUCCESS SUCCESS.  I would call this what a Successful test at this stage looks like.  It got to space and most of the way back.  What Artemis needs is for Starship to do TWO things.  They need to demonstrate FULLY SUCCESSFUL REENTRY and landing for both a tanker version AND a human rated version.  Starship HLS is not meant to ever come back to Earth but landing on Earth will not be harder to land on that the moon since Starship needs a flat place to land.  On Earth we can make that happen.  

 

What I am hoping starship HLS will turn out to be is not a Starship as we've seen it but an item made for space... made to go up and stay up and transfer people to and from the Moons surface  I doubt we'll be seeing a Flash Gordon pulp sci fi looking rocket on the Moon.  The streamlined shape and casing just aren't required in space. 

Even Thunderf00t had to give it to him.  

 

[wanderingfool2]

25 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Starship was officially lost during re-entry but that was also expected.

The pez door didn't seem to properly close [I'm wondering if that's the reason they decided to skip the engine relight...or maybe they decided against it after what happened to the booster].

 

Nice to see the boostback for the booster work correctly (I think you could see the starship in a few of the booster camera views as things happened).  It's unfortunate they didn't have a softer water landing, I'm wondering if there was some type of issue with their software design for the return (after all they never really would have been able to properly test it).  The reason I'm guessing this is that you have the one gimble engine light, but you had 2 other non gimble engines light [right around the time they experienced the instability].  So I'm wondering if either they had initial issues lighting and what we witnessed was the software trying to compensate by firing 2 other engines or if maybe the return burn had instructed the wrong engines to light.

 

Booster seems like they might be able to fix it though, if it was an issue about too little fuel remaining they could change up the flight a bit.  I'm thinking that maybe they were intending to do the relight a bit earlier in the decent because the grid fins I don't think were meant to handle keeping it stable at those speeds in full atmosphere.

 

One thing, iirc this boosters grid fins actually went back to close to the original design [not that it would make any difference]

 

31 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Damn - the camera feed of the de-orbit is insane. You can see the plasma form in HD. The maneuver doesn't look like it's going properly but I'm going to wait until there's a debrief before I comment on what I'm seeing. It's crazy how the signal is holding strong throughout the re-entry. Looks like they've stabilized. So far so good. Video keeps cutting out but that's expected.

That plasma was so cool to watch.  With how the camera began overheating or whatever it was was interesting to see as well (with the feed going on).  I'm wondering if they didn't have quite as much control as they hoped for with the flaps (it seemed to not be keeping the ship in correct orientation).

 

Although if the Pez doors didn't close, I wonder if that would have caused the issue.  From my understanding they have to form a partial seal in order to partially repressurize the cargo bay to maintain structural stability.  If it failed to close it might have met it's fait by folding itself during re-entry. [All speculations at this time].

 

Lots of what looked like foam as well when it started entry, so I'm wondering what sections those came from.

 

Overall a good flight, if the propellant transfer was successful they actually will have passed the NASA milestone (which means it's worth $53 million).

 

 

So here are my official guesses from watching it once, booster failed to preserve enough fuel for engine relights/didn't plan for the forces that quickly where they will do a second decent burn in the future to reduce the forces [or some way to reduce the velocity before hitting cloud height]...I think they might have underestimated the speed it would return.

 

Upper stage, I think the door not closing correctly might end up being one potential cause since it could snap during re-entry; but I'm on the fence I think they had maneuverability issues which might have caused the issue.

[wanderingfool2]

Adding on a bit, after rewatching part of the broadcast

 

With the Raptor 3 engines (or at least from what it appears it was hinted those would be the changes), it should be able to carry 150 - 250 tonnes of payload to orbit.

 

For perspective, the lower lift capability is 50% higher than the previous reported number and, 66% higher for the upper bound. [when measuring the baseline as the original].  It's a good thing in that refueling now could potentially be reduced by a factor of 2x (depending on how it was calculated before).

 

For perspective, 5 starships carry enough mass to fully refuel a Starship in space [50 tonnes extra fuel]...of course there will be boil off but even if you assume 20% that means only 6 starships to fully fuel.

[manikyath]

3 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

They need to demonstrate FULLY SUCCESSFUL REENTRY

it was "assumed" ahead of time that this starship wouldnt make it back, because it was still using an older method of attaching the heat shield.. so in a sense IFT3's re-entry was a test of just how well the starship can cope with potential missing tiles. i once again introduce you to the concept of iterative design.. figure out going up first, then figure out coming down.

 

3 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

What I am hoping starship HLS will turn out to be is not a Starship as we've seen it but an item made for space..

this is exactly why we dont need:

3 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

a human rated version. 

 

also, at this point i do want to add this quote from earlier in the thread, because it feels ever so valid now..

On 11/19/2023 at 9:16 PM, Uttamattamakin said:

 There is a reason the one big rocket with a lot of small engines approach hasn't worked for anyone yet.  

not only did it work, this massive piece of steel managed to do a flip and burn (part of SpaceX design goal to eventually do RTLS on the booster) after hot staging, and then did a landing burn. the booster defenately didnt come back "smooth sailing", but it was a pretty solid attempt.

 

then starship itself did all the necessary "demo" stuff: payload door, prop transfer, lighting an engine in space.

it then did a re-entry, which essentially only served as a way to provide SpaceX with the data of how well the thermal protection and ship itself held up trough re-entry. 

 

that all aside, NSF made an "all the angles" video that's a collection of all vareous cameras they had pointed at the scene:

 

[Uttamattamakin]

17 hours ago, manikyath said:

 

 

This was a fully successful test in my book for getting the rocket system into space.  Now we need to see it work as a functional system.  It has to accomplish Dear Moon, AND Artemis missions. These have deadlines.  We need to see an All up test for a human rated HLS,  Then that same basic craft will have to take the Dear Moon mission and an Artemis landing.  

 

We also need to see it go all the way without exploding.  Space X has with great force managed to find a second solution to a solved engineering problem by using many engines.  It remains to be seen if that really is a better idea though. 

[manikyath]

3 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Now we need to see it work as a functional system.  It has to accomplish Dear Moon, AND Artemis missions. These have deadlines.  We need to see an All up test for a human rated HLS,  Then that same basic craft will have to take the Dear Moon mission and an Artemis landing.  

yes.. and none of this involves landing a human rated starship. it involves a HLS (which will be based on but not be starship, in the same way as SLS is not shuttle, despite sharing A LOT of it's DNA.) 

 

i'm quoting you on the things you get wrong, like this:

3 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Space X has with great force managed to find a second solution to a solved engineering problem by using many engines.  It remains to be seen if that really is a better idea though. 

artemis used 4 main engines and two SRB's.. which is less, but quoted costs are literally 1000x higher, even if starship misses it's cost goals by 100x, it's still a 10th of the price of SLS.

it is very much not a "solved" problem if you can, trough a different concept, create a rocket that'll cut "at least one digit" off the price. you apparently cant see that -maybe- there's more ways to do things. internal combustion engines were "solved" in the 60s.. yet since then we have made HUGE advancements on internal combustion on all fronts:

- efficiency

- emissions

- power output for a given size

- weight

and while you can sit here kicking and screaming claiming that your analogy to a V8 big block is great.. the V8 big block is a horrible idea in the majority of road vehicles, including trucks (which choose straight-6 for maintenance considerations)

 

it's not because your solution "works", that you've now solved the problem in an "absolute" way. having "a" solution doesnt mean you have "the" solution in the real world. i'll ascribe your short-sightedness in this regard to your affiliation with an entity that might not be faring too well in a more "open for new ideas" space market.

 

case in point.. you've been relatively positive about rocketlab earlier in the thread... a company who:

- uses ideas that are more ridiculous than starship (one solid section of carbon fiber for their hull, and electric pumps with batteries that they jettison in sections as they drain.)

- has actually lost close to 10% of their payloads. (not missions, customer payloads.)

 

you're just mad that they're making efforts that make NASA seem old fashioned, trough means that NASA didnt dare to do, at pricetags NASA couldnt even dream of achieving. there'll never be a launch outcome for starship where you wont be negative in your outlook if you INSIST on using terms like:

"force managed to find"

"second solution to a solved problem"

and

"remains to be seen"

for a project that's below 1% of the cost of SLS, and is on a MUCH faster development path. even if it takes them 6 more years and hundreds of billions of dollars to reach their goals.. they're on a better trajectory than SLS. unless proof to the contrary is provided, it looks like in a few years, between starship or SLS, the only reason to use SLS will be because government entities like to keep some things in-house (with good reason, mind you.. i'm not denying that).

[Uttamattamakin]

9 hours ago, manikyath said:

yes.. and none of this involves landing a human rated starship. it involves a HLS (which will be based on but not be starship, in the same way as SLS is not shuttle, despite sharing A LOT of it's DNA.) 

Yeah like I said earlier.  Having the HLS be some kind of ... Flash Gordon looking rocket wouldn't make sense.  The thing is designed to stay in space once it is up so streamlinging it beyond a certain point is a waste of time. 

9 hours ago, manikyath said:

 

i'm quoting you on the things you get wrong, like this:

 

I'm not wrong about those things.  Space X finally got this thing to work once and not blow up.  That is SUCESS SUCCESS for sure but there are still real problems which are rooted in the design choices I and others criticized.  All the space focused creators I have watched have pointed out those problems.    

 

For example fuel slosh may still be a factor in why super heavy's engines did not re-light.  There are still things that need to be re-jiggered a bit before it is really going to be ready.  At least in principle they have shown that such work won't be a waste of time.  

 

It's worth a try.

[manikyath]

6 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

I'm not wrong about those things.  Space X finally got this thing to work once and not blow up.  That is SUCESS SUCCESS for sure but there are still real problems which are rooted in the design choices I and others criticized.  All the space focused creators I have watched have pointed out those problems.    

they have made it work just as many times as sls, there is no reason to suspect SLS is now a proven known value while in the same breath you would suspect starship to turn out deeply flawed.

 

and again... "the space focused creators you have watched" - the people i watch have been covering launches since the days of a written blog covering shuttle launches. they ofcourse have concerns about what goals starship stillo needs to rach, but they see no reason why spacex would not be able to reach them.

 

I'm sure that if you went to look up any of these outlets back when they were covering the early days of falcon, they would have been highly critical of this unproven commercial space entity and their wild ideas. fact of the matter is (and NSF does refer to this occasionally) that SpaceX has proven they can trailblaze radically new ideas, bring them to market, and turn them into highly reliable services. people being critical at an early stage of development doesnt have any implications for how the design would be somehow deeply flawed, and you've yet to show me any evidence that it would be flawed past your own opinion on the engine count.

 

which.. about that...

7 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

For example fuel slosh may still be a factor in why super heavy's engines did not re-light.

so.. it was a factor when the rocket was going down vertically trough atmosphere, but wasnt a factor during the flip, y'know.. where fuel slosh would be an issue.

now.. i could be wrong, but my limited education in fluid dynamics says that fuel slosh happens when an object is making large movements, not essentially going vertical at terminal velocity.

ascribing the failed landing burn to fuel slosh without any sort of reasoning behind it is nothing more than your shallow preferences for one solution over another. wich, just to remind you... landing the booster is a SpaceX thing to cut costs per launch down to that "0.1% of the cost of SLS", it is in no way required for the HLS contract.

 

to just remind you again, in a big font this time, nice and separated out, just so you get why SpaceX is tossing out conventional knowledge to "re-invent" a better wheel;

 

0.1% the cost per launch of SLS.