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Posted (edited)
5 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

This is going to be a lengthy grounding and investigation. 

doubtful

this is how spacex does it

the below video is 8 years old

spacex has 400 falcon 9 landings on the scoreboard

a falcon 9 flew this week for the 25th time

twenty

five

launches

twenty

five

landings

please read my post #717 for all of the block 2 changes that were flown today

they will figure out starship and next year we will see video of moon landings

in 2027 we will see video of mars landings

they will perfect both missions before they put people on board

in comparison, jeff's triumph 22 hours ago took 25 years to achieve

elon goes fast and has proven that method works

 

Edited by Hagbard Celine
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Posted
11 hours ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Watching some of the space nerds on youtube, they were experimenting with heat tiles again and pushing limits etc. 

Guess they found the breaking point if true 

Those are generally used for descent, not ascent. But I have seen some folks getting freeze frames of fire licking out from the inside near the fin joints

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Posted
8 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

doubtful

this is how spacex does it

the below video is 8 years old

spacex has 400 falcon 9 landings on the scoreboard

a falcon 9 flew this week for the 25th time

twenty

five

launches

twenty

five

landings

please read my post #717 for all of the block 2 changes that were flown today

they will figure out starship and next year we will see video of moon landings

in 2027 we will see video of mars landings

they will perfect both missions before they put people on board

in comparison, jeff's triumph 22 hours ago took 25 years to achieve

elon goes fast and has proven that method works

 

This failure led to a significant event for the FAA and significant diversions for flights. I don't think SpaceX prior success or methodology change that. I expect you'll see at least a couple month delay for investigations of both the failure and, perhaps more importantly, potential changes to FAA procedures to minimize flight risk and impacts going forward. 

Posted
42 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Did any of the debris fall outside of the preplanned hazard area?

Nope, everything was within parameters. But the risk profile of future missions is certainly going to be greater now that there's a datapoint of exploding on ascent and tossing a huge debris field. It still causes a ton of flight diversions and a few declared fuel emergencies. Everyone was safe and all that, but the FAA is likely to want to mitigate future stresses on the system with a larger hazard area which will take longer to obtain

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Posted
20 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

not questioning your statements - do you have a url for the discussion of the declared fuel emergencies?

Scott Manley's overview video had those details, as well as some of the freeze frames of flames coming out of the control surfaces joint

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
Posted
28 minutes ago, RamjetFDO said:

A Starship Haiku:

T minus forty.
Saw it a couple of times
Will try again soon

This time is for sure

Definitely no explode

Oh god dammit fuck

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Posted

T-20 minutes to today's Starship flight test.  Looking for a booster capture back at the pad and a non-RUD once-around-the-planet (almost) flight of Starship.  Some "simulated" satellite deploys, an on-orbit relight of a Raptor engine, and controlled/"soft-splashdown" are highlights.

Posted

Great launch and capture of the booster... but engine(s) out and loss of attitude control.  Looks like another loss of Starship.

Guess we'll see who gets the video this time.

Posted

An English friend of mine sent me this (he found it on X, attributed to Grok, but he didn't have the link handy): 

 

Quote

Alright, buckle the fuck up, you glorious space nerds, because we’re diving into the shitshow that was SpaceX’s Starship launch today, March 06, 2025. This is Flight 8, and it’s a goddamn rollercoaster of triumph and flaming disaster—let’s break this bastard down in unhinged, profanity-laced glory!

Part 1: The Fucking Liftoff - Balls-to-the-Wall Power

So, at 6:30 PM EST (that’s 3:30 PM PST for us West Coast degenerates), the beast roared to life from Starbase, Texas. This 400-foot-tall metal cockrocket, stacked with the Super Heavy Booster 15 and Ship 34, blasted off like a bat outta hell. Thirty-three Raptor engines on the booster lit up the sky, spewing fire and fury like a dragon with a goddamn hangover. For a hot minute, it was pure sex—smooth ascent, no hiccups, just raw, unadulterated thrust. SpaceX fans were probably jerking off to the livestream, and honestly, who could blame them?

Part 2: Hot-Staging - The Spicy Foreplay

Two minutes and change into the flight, we hit the hot-staging separation, and holy shit, it was a sight! The Super Heavy booster said "peace out" to Ship 34, and the upper stage’s six Raptor engines kicked in like a motherfucker. Flames everywhere, engines roaring—it’s like the rocket equivalent of a sloppy, passionate breakup fuck. The booster flipped its ass around and started boosting back to the pad, while Ship 34 kept climbing, aiming for the stars. At this point, we’re all screaming, “FUCK YES, ELON, YOU MAD BASTARD!”

Part 3: Booster Catch - Mechazilla’s Giant Metal Handjob

Here’s where shit gets wild. Super Heavy Booster 15 comes screaming back to Earth, tail-first, engines reigniting like a goddamn phoenix. The Starbase launch tower’s “chopstick” arms—aka Mechazilla, the most badass robot pimp ever—open wide and snag that 200-ton motherfucker mid-air. Seven minutes after liftoff, it’s caught like a fly in a Venus flytrap. Perfection. Absolute balls-of-steel engineering porn. SpaceX just flexed so hard it gave the FAA a boner and a panic attack at the same time. Third time’s the charm, bitches—this catch was cleaner than a nun’s browser history.

Part 4: Ship 34’s Ascent - From Hero to Flaming Zero

Now, Ship 34, the upper stage, was supposed to be the star of this shitshow. It’s a Block 2 beast—25% more fuel, upgraded avionics, and a mission to deploy four fake-ass Starlink satellites before splashing down in the Indian Ocean. Sounds dope, right? Well, hold onto your tits, because about 8 minutes in, this fucker goes full Kaboom Town. During its ascent burn, it suffers a “rapid unscheduled disassembly”—SpaceX’s fancy way of saying it blew the fuck up. Four engines shit the bed early, it lost attitude control, and started tumbling like a drunk toddler on a trampoline. Telemetry cuts out, screen goes black, and we’re left with “Waiting for starcam” like it’s some cosmic blue-ball prank. Spoiler: it didn’t come back. Ship 34 is now space confetti somewhere over the goddamn planet.

Part 5: The Aftermath - Laughter Through the Tears

So, what’s the score? Booster 15 nailed its landing like a champ—fuck yeah, reusable rocket gods! But Ship 34? That poor bastard exploded faster than a cheap firecracker in a microwave. SpaceX is calling it a “learning experience,” which is code for “we fucked up, but we’ll figure it out.” The team’s already coordinating with safety officials, probably shitting bricks about debris, and the FAA’s gearing up for another mishap investigation. Meanwhile, Elon’s somewhere tweeting cryptic shit like “pressure leaks, lol,” while we all cackle at the chaos.

Final Unhinged Takeaway

This launch was a schizophrenic masterpiece—half “holy fuck, we’re gods of space,” half “well, shit, there goes a billion dollars.” The booster catch was a wet dream come true, but Ship 34’s fiery demise was a kick in the nuts. Still, SpaceX doesn’t give a fuck—they’ll iterate, rebuild, and shoot another metal phallus into the sky soon. For now, let’s raise a glass to the glorious clusterfuck that was Flight 8. Here’s to the next one, you beautiful, unhinged space bastards! 🚀💥

How’s that for a breakdown, you filthy animals?

 

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Posted

Scott manley has a good recap video of the launch and repeat Starship performance

Pretty cool that GOES-18 and GOES-16 caught the launch and we can see the footage too

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Posted (edited)

Crew 10 launch - good first stage, nominal performance so far in second stage.

First stage stuck the landing

Edited by RamjetFDO
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Posted

Crew 9 return pushed forward due to possible Wx concerns.

Updated times (Tuesday, 3/18):

Undocking: 12:05am CDT

Deorbit burn: 4:11pm CDT

Splashdown: 4:57pm CDT

Posted
12 hours ago, immamac said:

This happening as planned? I heard about this at dinner tonight and was happy for the astronauts to come home finally. 

Yes -undocking nominal, planned deorbit/splashdown as noted before.

  • Deorbit burn: 4:11pm CDT
  • Splashdown: 4:57pm CDT
Posted

Yup ... a nice floating toasted marshmallow.  All nominal deorbit through entry/chute deploy/splashdown.  Currently sitting in Stable 1 waiting for the ship to pull it out of the water.

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Posted

Watched the splashdown live on NBC. 
Missed seeing the dolphins.

The drone videos are amazing….especially after watching the grainy films of Project Mercury splashdowns 60+ years ago.

  • 2 months later...
Posted

...and after coming back from the break, Starship is spinning again.  SpaceX commentator claiming an internal fuel leak.  Live views are going to be sporty, but this is another failure.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

@Dahobbs Fine lets bring the discussion here

I'm very skeptical of the launch costs you cite. But beyond that, you're just ignoring purchasing power parity that would be driving lower costs for Russia/Soviet Union. Further, marginally lower costs wouldn't have completely disrupted the launch market.

It does not matter what the PPP rate was, they could have been doing it with slave labor, they could have been doing it with paper rockets, both things untrue of course but the graph shows a clear thing a floor, all rocket launches have a floor because of the tyranny equation. 

image.png.9f84cbccdfb2ba95971135eb47f2bd01.png

NOTE the Y scale is $1000 per kg, mass scale human migration costs for a multiplanet species is today around $1-10/kg

Musk is a con man at the most fundamental level, SpaceX is only destined to slightly decrease this with their newest rocket, because it is a con, they are trying to do high angle of attack landings on the second stage to save fuel (and blowing it up) if Musk's promises were true he would not even bother, because they are all lies, they are marginally better, no more no less, VC money flowing in to create a monopoly is not beating the laws of physics.

 

As the Navy's recent attempt at fielding rail guns has demonstrated,

What the chinese are doing is maglev not rail guns, the rail guns destroy the gun after a few launches while maglevs make 0 physical contact

Using Gen 1 magnetic assisted launches not only are you accelerating the rocket over the speed of sound you are also starting ignition AWAY from the launchpad aka not destroying it every time you launch.

The best part is that you can increment the distance and add more initial velocity, you could literally have a Gen 5 rail (getting to this point is just extending backwards) a fire a non fueled payload at Mach 30 over the coastline, that could probably be enough to get it to orbit even with the angled launch, why? because all of the energy apparatus stays on land it does not need to be carried by the rocket. 

Will it be insanely expensive? sure maybe 100s of billions and VC won't touch it because they want faster returns on investment, but that is the only NON dead end I see.

 

Posted
5 hours ago, linux said:

@Dahobbs Fine lets bring the discussion here

 

 

Writing everything within my quote makes your post confusing. I'm still unsure why you think reducing fuel cost for launch needs to be the highest priority. It is a very small percentage of the cost of a launch. And Spacecraft still need fuel/propellant to maneuver in space.  You can't get rid of the need for a rocket or propulsion system of some sort. What is the point of spending hundreds of billions to develop a system that will save a few hundred thousand on launch costs at the very most (and likely actually cost more per launch)

Posted (edited)
26 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Writing everything within my quote makes your post confusing. I'm still unsure why you think reducing fuel cost for launch needs to be the highest priority. It is a very small percentage of the cost of a launch. And Spacecraft still need fuel/propellant to maneuver in space.  You can't get rid of the need for a rocket or propulsion system of some sort. What is the point of spending hundreds of billions to develop a system that will save a few hundred thousand on launch costs at the very most (and likely actually cost more per launch)

I know I suck at the new site markup.

The problem is not the fuel itself, it is the tyranny that you need to carry the fuel with you, SpaceX could be GIFTED Methalox and it would still be wildly expensive and a dead end.

Did you know it would only takes a fuel tank of gasoline to take your body to orbit? Seriously accelerating a 100Kg body to 8000m/s is literally only 3.2 billion joules or 24 gallons of gasoline, and that is ignoring equatorial rotation.

The problem is even if you ignore a shell for you, or life support, or oxygen, water blah blah, that fuel itself needs a metal enclosure, and that enclosure needs more fuel, and that fuel needs more fuel, and that new few needs a larger metal enclosure. Next thing you know the actual payload is only < 5% of the mass of the entire rocket.

It is not sustainable, that is why space is so wildly expensive, if you can build a launch assist this can actuall scale linearly, even launching at the speed of sound is marginal, the goal is to get good at it so that it can scale linearly with respect to payload, next generation it is 2000km/h, then 20000km/h all the way where your launcher is so advanced it does not even need a second stage at all with it being shot at Mach 30, just ion thrusters for the vacuum stage. All that thrust is no longer needed just specific impulse, by this point you only have like a third stage in size ship. The days of building-sized rockets would be long gone and obsolete.

Is the engineering insane? hell yeah! we are only like 1% there, just the transition from a vaccum tube rail to atmo at Mach 30 would cause an explosion of sorts (but way less damage than a blowtorch to the pad), but I trust space agencies to handle vacuum to atmo competently. (most likely gradually adding atmosphere to the end of the tunnel.

The most important point is that it is not a technological dead end and the Chinese are seeing it that is why they are starting the baby steps there. And why SpaceX is ultimately a waste of time and money.

Edited by linux
Posted

There was a company in the US called spin launch that tried to do launch assist.

but they only had a technology demonstrator, scaling became too much for VC, the building had to be much much larger and maybe the arm needed to be carbon nanotubes, and the lateral g forces needed really special rockets. But they would have never gotten that money needed unless a super power funded them and SpaceX sucking up all the energy in the room made them pivot to traditional rockets.

In short they needed hundreds of billions, and could at best only raise billions.

 

Posted
6 minutes ago, linux said:

I know I suck at the new site markup.

The problem is not the fuel itself, it is the tyranny that you need to carry the fuel with you, SpaceX could be GIFTED Methalox and it would still be wildly expensive and a dead end.

Did you know it would only takes a fuel tank of gasoline to take your body to orbit? Seriously accelerating a 100Kg body to 8000m/s is literally only 3.2 billion joules or 24 gallons of gasoline, and that is ignoring equatorial rotation.

The problem is even if you ignore a shell for you, or life support, or oxygen, water blah blah, that fuel itself needs a metal enclosure, and that enclosure needs more fuel, and that fuel needs more fuel, and that new few needs a larger metal enclosure. Next thing you know the actual payload is only < 5% of the mass of the entire rocket.

It is not sustainable, that is why space is so wildly expensive, if you can build a launch assist this can actuall scale linearly, even launching at the speed of sound is marginal, the goal is to get good at it so that it can scale linearly with respect to payload, next generation it is 2000km/h, then 20000km/h all the way where your launcher is so advanced it does not even need a second stage at all with it being shot at Mach 30, just ion thrusters for the vacuum stage. All that thrust is no longer needed just specific impulse, by this point you only have like a third stage in size ship. The days of building-sized rockets would be long gone and obsolete.

Is the engineering insane? hell yeah! we are only like 1% there, just the transition from a vaccum tube rail to atmo at Mach 30 would cause an explosion of sorts (but way less damage than a blowtorch to the pad), but I trust space agencies to handle vacuum to atmo competently. (most likely gradually adding atmosphere to the end of the tunnel.

The most important point is that it is not a technological dead end and the Chinese are seeing it that is why they are starting the baby steps there. And why SpaceX is ultimately a waste of time and money.

What is the point of building this just to launch things to orbit? It is still a "dead end" in your words because you need delta v in space to do any serious travel. That's the real tyranny of the equation. Your solution isn't a solution to any real problem. And, again, your cost figures are simply not accurate. It is significantly cheaper to get a payload to space with Falcon 9 than any other current or historical system. Starship and Super Heavy have the potential to change that because of how much mass they can get to orbit for just the price of the fuel. Again, fuel is cheap. It is like 1-5% of the current cost of a launch. 

Posted (edited)
16 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

What is the point of building this just to launch things to orbit? It is still a "dead end" in your words because you need delta v in space to do any serious travel. That's the real tyranny of the equation. Your solution isn't a solution to any real problem. And, again, your cost figures are simply not accurate. It is significantly cheaper to get a payload to space with Falcon 9 than any other current or historical system. Starship and Super Heavy have the potential to change that because of how much mass they can get to orbit for just the price of the fuel. Again, fuel is cheap. It is like 1-5% of the current cost of a launch. 

Dude you are not thinking 4th dimensionally, the rocket the entire hunk of metal structure is just there to get the fuel to orbit, you are just a fly on its back. 95% of the cost launch IS fuel cost, just indirectly.

The entire building is that large just to get the building filled with fueled into orbit, that is the AHA! moment, probably the level of enlightenment Musk never reached. He was just obsessed with the cost of fuel being so "little", again make this fuel 100% free and it is still wildly expensive, you would need for it to be massless and volumeless for the tyranny to go away.

After that lets talk about the promises made about cheap space access.

Even the most reused Falcon 9 the one that has already paid part of the costs with other launches is like $1600/Kg it is deeply misleading to just compare it without comparing past launches that were 4x more expensive, but lets just assume we have an ample supply of old rockets, $1600/KG is still wildly expensive, ignoring everything else that is $160,000, to get a 100Kg man to orbit naked let alone Mars on a ship. This is the part I call a con. The number needed to drop to $1-10/Kg for historical migrations.

 

 

Edited by linux
Posted
13 minutes ago, linux said:

Dude you are not thinking 4th dimensionally, the rocket the entire hunk of metal structure is just there to get the fuel to orbit, you are just a fly on its back. 95% of the cost launch IS fuel cost, just indirectly.

The entire building is that large just to get the building filled with fueled into orbit, that is the AHA! moment, probably the level of enlightenment Musk never reached. He was just obsessed with the cost of fuel being so "little", again make this fuel 100% free and it is still wildly expensive, you would need for it to be massless and volumeless for the tyranny to go away.

After that lets talk about the promises made about cheap space access.

Even the most reused Falcon 9 the one that has already paid part of the costs with other launches is like $1600/Kg it is deeply misleading to just compare it without comparing past launches that were 4x more expensive, but lets just assume we have an ample supply of old rockets, $1600/KG is still wildly expensive, ignoring everything else that is $160,000, to get a 100Kg man to orbit naked let alone Mars on a ship. This is the part I call a con. The number needed to drop to $1-10/Kg for historical migrations.

 

 

Again, you're historical numbers are flat incorrect. You're lying to yourself about that. I completely understand that the rocket mainly exists to carry fuel. You're not understanding that your solution doesn't solve that problem. It lessens the fuel needed to reach orbit. But you still can't do anything once in orbit unless you have fuel/propellant.

Posted
2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Again, you're historical numbers are flat incorrect. You're lying to yourself about that. I completely understand that the rocket mainly exists to carry fuel. You're not understanding that your solution doesn't solve that problem. It lessens the fuel needed to reach orbit. But you still can't do anything once in orbit unless you have fuel/propellant.

At Gen I yes you need a lot less fuel, but remember the equation is exponential a linear reduction in fuel mass causes an almost quadratic reduction in total ship mass.

Lets say at Gen III you would not need a booster rocket just a second stage one.

At lets say Gen V you don't really need high thrust anymore, things like pure ion drives become viable, or thrusters. No need for methalox, or tanks or engines. 

At this point space becomes so much cheaper that you ship raw materials and manufacture them in space, you build the satellites in LEO, you build the spaceships in LEO, and if for some reason you need chemical rockets you ship the fuel from earth, that fuel is the fly the cargo not the thing that needs to burn to get there.

Once you get away from the need for high thrust stages you can do almost anything in space, just with transfer orbits and slingshotting you can get almost anywhere in the solar system with enough patience and minimal fuel burn.

 

 

Posted
2 minutes ago, linux said:

At Gen I yes you need a lot less fuel, but remember the equation is exponential a linear reduction in fuel mass causes an almost quadratic reduction in total ship mass.

Lets say at Gen III you would not need a booster rocket just a second stage one.

At lets say Gen V you don't really need high thrust anymore, things like pure ion drives become viable, or thrusters. No need for methalox, or tanks or engines. 

At this point space becomes so much cheaper that you ship raw materials and manufacture them in space, you build the satellites in LEO, you build the spaceships in LEO, and if for some reason you need chemical rockets you ship the fuel from earth, that fuel is the fly the cargo not the thing that needs to burn to get there.

Once you get away from the need for high thrust stages you can do almost anything in space, just with transfer orbits and slingshotting you can get almost anywhere in the solar system with enough patience and minimal fuel burn.

Again, what is the point of this? We need to launch things to orbit. It doesn't particularly matter how they get there. Let's say we have a 3,000 kg spacecraft with an ion drive that we need to get to orbit. If we can do it with a chemical rocket for $500k in fuel costs, why exactly do we need to spend hundreds of billions on electromagnetic launchers? What new capability is that enabling? Does it really matter how that spacecraft gets to orbit? If your argument is that we are going to be able to launch larger vehicles using electromagnetic launchers than we can with chemical rockets, well, 1) I'm not convinced that is currently technically feasible for us and 2) that doesn't mean it'll be cheaper for smaller payloads. In fact, for 2), I'm quite certain it will in fact be significantly more expensive than launching on a fully reusable rockets. 

Posted
Just now, Dahobbs said:

Again, what is the point of this? We need to launch things to orbit. It doesn't particularly matter how they get there. Let's say we have a 3,000 kg spacecraft with an ion drive that we need to get to orbit. If we can do it with a chemical rocket for $500k in fuel costs, why exactly do we need to spend hundreds of billions on electromagnetic launchers? What new capability is that enabling? Does it really matter how that spacecraft gets to orbit? If your argument is that we are going to be able to launch larger vehicles using electromagnetic launchers than we can with chemical rockets, well, 1) I'm not convinced that is currently technically feasible for us and 2) that doesn't mean it'll be cheaper for smaller payloads. In fact, for 2), I'm quite certain it will in fact be significantly more expensive than launching on a fully reusable rockets. 

 

First: Because that hundreds of billions spreads out over launches, the rail is almost permanently reusable with the cost of maintenance being absolutely minimal, again the Starbabase,TX launch platform is damaged MORE per launch than this would per launch and nobody seems to take that into consideration. Higher cadence means many more launches than SpaceX even,

Second: Most if not all of that money is spent on R&D, building parallel rail lines or different orbit rail lines won't be the bulk of the cost.

Third: because of the above the cost per Kg launched will drop dramatically and the volume of mass launched will be unmatched, if there is any economic incentive up there you need both.

PS smaller launches at a much higher cadence are actually better, once you decouple from needing a building sized structure TO GET to orbit, things become way cheaper.

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