SpaceX Launch and Landing

[PJ_in_FL]

Just watched (via live stream) the latest SpaceX launch, putting more Starlink satellites in orbit. Sorry Graeme.

The booster landed and was recovered for reuse. This was it's NINTH time to launch a payload into orbit.

Scorecard of Recovered Orbital Class Boosters:

• SpaceX 186
• All others 0

That one accomplishment says a lot about the space industry and it's goals for the past 50 years.

Since October of 2000, a total of 22½ years, there have been people in space continuously, a massive step forward in capability, and moving humanity in a direction that is greatly needed as the demand for resources continues to increase, but the supply cannot keep up indefinitely.

With a successful launch of STARSHIP tomorrow, whether it actually makes orbit or is just a "very exciting test flight" as most of SpaceX initial flights tend to be, we'll be that much closer to the date when we start permanent habitation of another body, the Moon. I would love to see the base established per NASA's timeline by 2030, but, given NASA's track record of staying on schedule (nonexistent), the most likely timeline is probably closer to 2035.

Sadly, after pouring nearly $100 billion into the Artemis program, that vehicle, and probably Orion as well, won't be more than a footnote in this effort. There aren't enough engines available to support more than a dozen or so useful launches. Starship, being 100% reusable, will be the vehicle that gets the infrastructure and personnel to the Moon going forward. Though I would not be surprised to see a little competition from other actors, so keep your eyes on the Far East as well.

[ChrisGreaves]

Just watched (via live stream) the latest SpaceX launch, putting more Starlink satellites in orbit. Sorry Graeme. ... That one accomplishment says a lot about the space industry and it's goals for the past 50 years.

Speaking Writing as one who grew up in the space age:- In October 1957, eleven years old, in Southern Cross, I watched Sputnik's first traverse of the Western Australian skies. My mother dragged us all out of the Scout Hall to watch it. This was a traumatic event for my parents who lived in Manchester during war years and witnessed the bombing. They were still too naive about physics and were worried that The Russians could now "bomb us from a height our guns can't reach". My mother served in the Ack-Ack.

A couple of years later we lived for a year in Perth at the time of John Glenn's orbital flight. Perth acquired the label "City of Light" in part because Mum and Dad (and about twenty thousand other citizens of Perth) played a part in the orbital flight. Dad rigged up a 100w lamp bulb at the base of the Hill Hoist while my mother grabbed as many clean bed sheets as she could, and around 9pm they were busy pegging sheets to make a crude reflector for Dad's 100w filament globe. I watched with amusement before returning to study my 2nd year high school geometry exercises inside.

My teenage years were spent cringing in embarrassment as the MovieTone news showed clips of rockets exploding within two miles of launch from USA sites. How could the US let us down so ...?
When was the last time you watched MovieTone news in a cinema or a drive-in?

I have now stopped watching SpaceX launches; their behaviour is too predictable. Which means it is not news.

As PJ points out, the records are phenomenal compared to the early days. A SpaceX launch, first stage and fairing recovery, are not quite as blasé as a day-in-the-life of a Toronto Transit Commission bus, but getting there!

All of which leads me to believe that we must be due for a catastrophic failure of a launch Real Soon Now™, but with such a track-record behind it, SpaceX will weather it as does the car driver who, this morning, was involved in a fender-bender.

I no longer get excited at the prospect of a colony on The Moon.
Or Mars.

However i am steadfast in my belief that the problems on Earth (resources, ecology, population, pollution etc) must and will be solved by humans on Earth, and not by extra-terrestrial colonies. Those colonies will exist and blossom and bloom, but they will no be a solution to the populations on earth.

I think that when that realization dawns, we might all be prepared to roll up our sleeves.

Congratulations to SpaceX!

Cheers, Chris

[BobH]

I think the recovery and reuse numbers say a great deal about how private industry has influenced the arena.

[Graeme]

Starship, being 100% reusable, will be the vehicle that gets the infrastructure and personnel to the Moon going forward.

That's what I would put my money on!

I hope the test goes well tomorrow.

Graeme

[ChrisGreaves]

With a successful launch of STARSHIP tomorrow, whether it actually makes orbit or is just a "very exciting test flight"...

EXCITING!
I especially enjoyed the apparent wiggle-waggle of the two stages caused, I suspect, by air pressure waves - the sound of the engines - as the 300-foot structure rose into the sky.
Those vibrations persisted for such a long time, an indication of the energy released and traveling so far (inverse-square law) to reach and move the cameras.
Cheers, Chris

[HansV]

Well... Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket blows up minutes after launch

[Graeme]

Did you see his face!!!

Here's a bit more detail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1wcilQ58hI

Watch from about 40 minutes in.

[ChrisGreaves]

Well... Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket blows up minutes after launch

I congratulate the whole team.
The in-house pre-launch commentary stated "our aim today is to get the ship off the landing pad", and the craft appears to have been detonated at 2,000 KM/hr and 35 Km altitude.
I couldn't bicycle 35 Km, even with a tub of ice-cream waiting for me at the end.

We are not privy to this mission's goal, but "getting off the launch pad" was certainly an attainable goal, and they reached that. So Congrats!
Getting to Hawaii too was an attainable goal, and they will do it next time or, at the latest, the time after that.

Yesterday I spoke of "catastrophic failure" and I don't count this as catastrophic failure. SpaceX has a ton of data to analyze and hundreds of eager eyes examining the numerous video feeds (we saw only a few seconds of one of the internal cameras showing the second stage engines; how many GoPros can Musk afford?)

To my mind a failure, catastrophic or not, would have been signaled by getting the thing off the launch pad in more than one piece, much as those 1960s launches appeared,

In programming terms, I think that just twice in my life have I managed to write a program (in a new language) that ran perfectly first time, and that was the algorithm Print "Hello World!", not a new algorithm.
On my first morning at Phillips i was given a novel programming manual and managed to write a conversational program that by lunchtime amazed my boss, but it was a VERY crude conversational program.

Many of my posts in this and other BBS demonstrate my incompetence ... but only when i am prepared to display it.

Cheers, Chris

[PJ_in_FL]

What an exciting day!

STARSHIP COMPLETES FIRST FLIGHT.jpg

As was said during the cast, clearing the tower defined a successful launch.

[stuck]

What an exciting day!...

Yes, I love fireworks so to see one this big, in broad daylight, was impressive.

Ken