SpaceX flight testing in South Texas
That was one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen. I do hope someone in Western Australia is chugging their way out there to claim salvage. 😁
The following users liked this post:
Two questions for the experts...
Why didn't they place drone-ships to record the splashdowns, and would the booster and ship remain afloat after a soft splashdown or are they destroyed as a safety measure?
Simply amazing stuff - bit it's such a shame informed, informative commentary hasn't developed in concert with the technical aspects. Instead we got two ghastly wimmen with voices like fingernails on a blackboard, inarticulate, endlessly repetitive, talking pure scribble on several occasions, eg 'high temperature heat' etc and next to no technical or engineering content only serves to trivialise an event of such importance which is a crying shame.
Stunning achievement by all involved, except those awful simpering prattlers.
Why didn't they place drone-ships to record the splashdowns, and would the booster and ship remain afloat after a soft splashdown or are they destroyed as a safety measure?
Simply amazing stuff - bit it's such a shame informed, informative commentary hasn't developed in concert with the technical aspects. Instead we got two ghastly wimmen with voices like fingernails on a blackboard, inarticulate, endlessly repetitive, talking pure scribble on several occasions, eg 'high temperature heat' etc and next to no technical or engineering content only serves to trivialise an event of such importance which is a crying shame.
Stunning achievement by all involved, except those awful simpering prattlers.
Last edited by meleagertoo; 6th Jun 2024 at 21:44.
Tabs please !
Not an expert but I do a couple of STEM talks a year on the science, engineering and history of space flight (next topic - the unmanned moon landings). Sometimes, I even get asked back.
Both vehicles are probably still afloat and are now a hazard to shipping. The Shuttle SRBs would land (expensive end first, causing some damage) and float with around 20 feet of structure standing proud of the surface. The two SpaceX vehicles are probably about 90% plus of emptiness so will be "bobbin' in the oggin" unless there are mechanisms to open them up and sink them.....such as the in-flight destruction system.
Having camera drone ships is a great idea but at sea, the horizon is not too far away so a position error of say 50 miles would mean that you miss the show. Probably not worth the bother.
Yesterday's flight was a technological tour de force, with two viable soft landings. We live in the age of miracles but alas poor commentary. Bring back Raymond Baxter and James Burke.
Both vehicles are probably still afloat and are now a hazard to shipping. The Shuttle SRBs would land (expensive end first, causing some damage) and float with around 20 feet of structure standing proud of the surface. The two SpaceX vehicles are probably about 90% plus of emptiness so will be "bobbin' in the oggin" unless there are mechanisms to open them up and sink them.....such as the in-flight destruction system.
Having camera drone ships is a great idea but at sea, the horizon is not too far away so a position error of say 50 miles would mean that you miss the show. Probably not worth the bother.
Yesterday's flight was a technological tour de force, with two viable soft landings. We live in the age of miracles but alas poor commentary. Bring back Raymond Baxter and James Burke.
Until they can predict with a high degree of precision where the expensive bits are going to end up, putting a drone ship with a camera there isn't going to get you much in the way of good footage. The data transmitted will tell you just as much (if not more) as a video shot from 2 miles away is going to do.
The following users liked this post:
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Elon Musk:
I think we should try to catch the booster with the mechazilla arms next flight!
I think we should try to catch the booster with the mechazilla arms next flight!
Tabs please !
The following users liked this post:
Two questions for the experts...
Why didn't they place drone-ships to record the splashdowns, and would the booster and ship remain afloat after a soft splashdown or are they destroyed as a safety measure?
Simply amazing stuff - bit it's such a shame informed, informative commentary hasn't developed in concert with the technical aspects. Instead we got two ghastly wimmen with voices like fingernails on a blackboard, inarticulate, endlessly repetitive, talking pure scribble on several occasions, eg 'high temperature heat' etc and next to no technical or engineering content only serves to trivialise an event of such importance which is a crying shame.
Stunning achievement by all involved, except those awful simpering prattlers.
Why didn't they place drone-ships to record the splashdowns, and would the booster and ship remain afloat after a soft splashdown or are they destroyed as a safety measure?
Simply amazing stuff - bit it's such a shame informed, informative commentary hasn't developed in concert with the technical aspects. Instead we got two ghastly wimmen with voices like fingernails on a blackboard, inarticulate, endlessly repetitive, talking pure scribble on several occasions, eg 'high temperature heat' etc and next to no technical or engineering content only serves to trivialise an event of such importance which is a crying shame.
Stunning achievement by all involved, except those awful simpering prattlers.
A massive achievement by all concerned and your focus is on the commentary?
Jesus! 🙄
Edit. Maybe do a bit of research before sounding off about people you know nothing about.
Kate Tice is an incredible individual, well respected and probably forgotten more about engineering than many of us will ever know!
https://www.katetice.com/
Ditto Jessica Anderson
https://en.everybodywiki.com/Jessie_Anderson
Last edited by TURIN; 7th Jun 2024 at 12:58.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Spacex don’t have professional commentators, they’re all company engineers with full time proper engineering jobs - so, yeah, they’re not slick and they don’t talk geek because they’re excited and they don’t want to talk down to their audience.
The company has lotteries for for those who want to apply, then auditions, and they prepare and prep them as much as they can - but it’s the same as if you put a F1 engineer up to commentate on a race, they’d be awful.
But that’s their ethos - the money and the time goes into the engineers, and the engineering - not the PR.
I think Starlink and the real-time video more than make up for it.
Watch the movie and ignore the talking heads…
The company has lotteries for for those who want to apply, then auditions, and they prepare and prep them as much as they can - but it’s the same as if you put a F1 engineer up to commentate on a race, they’d be awful.
But that’s their ethos - the money and the time goes into the engineers, and the engineering - not the PR.
I think Starlink and the real-time video more than make up for it.
Watch the movie and ignore the talking heads…
The following 2 users liked this post by ORAC:
Tabs please !
That's quite an ask when you have someone chattering away like a teenager with a sugar rush. A commentator should hold the audience in the palm of their hand. Simply whooping and telling them what their brains have already processed adds nothing. During a launch, there are so many things going on that are never explained. During my talks on rocket engineering, I first apologise for showing footage of Apollo launches that even your mother has seen a bazillion times, but explain the small stuff which until then, went over the heads of 99% of the viewers.
Take for example the stock footage of the Saturn V stage separation (the unmanned Apollo 4 test flight IIRC). First of all, the second stage with the upward facing camera is falling back due to "upward" firing braking rockets mounted on the outer wall of that stage, which separates the two sections. You then see three ullage motors (later reduced to a pair) firing on the third stage. Those imparted a slight acceleration which returned the fuel to the bottom of the tanks of the third stage, and lessened the risk of an engine being destroyed by ingesting vapour at the point of ignition. Upon engine light, the exhaust is a clean bright white light due to burning liquid hydrogen and oxygen (unlike the incredible F1 first stage engines). I call it engineering hiding in plain sight. Point out the science behind what is hiding in plain sight and if the audience are genuinely interested, they will be eating out of the palm of your hand.
And for goodness sake, never wear a hat indoors. I'll do it all for expenses and a ringside seat in Boca Chica. I'll even wear a jacket and tie.
Take for example the stock footage of the Saturn V stage separation (the unmanned Apollo 4 test flight IIRC). First of all, the second stage with the upward facing camera is falling back due to "upward" firing braking rockets mounted on the outer wall of that stage, which separates the two sections. You then see three ullage motors (later reduced to a pair) firing on the third stage. Those imparted a slight acceleration which returned the fuel to the bottom of the tanks of the third stage, and lessened the risk of an engine being destroyed by ingesting vapour at the point of ignition. Upon engine light, the exhaust is a clean bright white light due to burning liquid hydrogen and oxygen (unlike the incredible F1 first stage engines). I call it engineering hiding in plain sight. Point out the science behind what is hiding in plain sight and if the audience are genuinely interested, they will be eating out of the palm of your hand.
And for goodness sake, never wear a hat indoors. I'll do it all for expenses and a ringside seat in Boca Chica. I'll even wear a jacket and tie.
The following users liked this post:
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Reference the WB-57 filming the booster landing, lin’ below is information on the Falcon 900EX tracking the Starship landing.
Information from yesterday’s wash-up is that the booster landed on its precise aim point - which is why there is now talk of trying to catch it next time - whilst the Starship landed 8km from its aim point. Which isn5 bad considering the amount of damage to the flap.
So, about this.
I was tipped off that VH-MXJ (an Australian Falcon 900EX) had something to do with Flt 4.
I overlaid its flight path with the debris/keepout areas and it matches up. They were watching it reenter and *MAY* have got some footage
As you can see in this image, VH-MXJ's flight path directly enters the keep-out zone, which means that it must've been related to SpaceX. There is not many ADS-B pings, as you'd expect out in the ocean; still, there may have been a case for the transponder to be left on standby.
This would be similar to the recovery vessel Go America in the Gulf, which appeared to have disabled its transponder for a while likely to prevent other boats from reaching the booster in time.
As for the plane: the Falcon 900EX can go pretty high, like FL509/50,900ft. This would be ideal for imagery and observation of the ship.
As you can see from the most recent image of the specific aircraft, it does not have any specific imaging hardware and/or hardpoints for mounting. I still think they were able to get some decent media "out the window".
Information from yesterday’s wash-up is that the booster landed on its precise aim point - which is why there is now talk of trying to catch it next time - whilst the Starship landed 8km from its aim point. Which isn5 bad considering the amount of damage to the flap.
So, about this.
I was tipped off that VH-MXJ (an Australian Falcon 900EX) had something to do with Flt 4.
I overlaid its flight path with the debris/keepout areas and it matches up. They were watching it reenter and *MAY* have got some footage
As you can see in this image, VH-MXJ's flight path directly enters the keep-out zone, which means that it must've been related to SpaceX. There is not many ADS-B pings, as you'd expect out in the ocean; still, there may have been a case for the transponder to be left on standby.
This would be similar to the recovery vessel Go America in the Gulf, which appeared to have disabled its transponder for a while likely to prevent other boats from reaching the booster in time.
As for the plane: the Falcon 900EX can go pretty high, like FL509/50,900ft. This would be ideal for imagery and observation of the ship.
As you can see from the most recent image of the specific aircraft, it does not have any specific imaging hardware and/or hardpoints for mounting. I still think they were able to get some decent media "out the window".
Nice exclusive from Ellie in Space. Elon being interviewed not long after IFT4.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Musk just confirmed:
Starship booster makes soft landing in water, next landing will be caught by the tower arms.
Starship booster makes soft landing in water, next landing will be caught by the tower arms.
But I've got a feeling they've got some pretty major design isues to solve before we see another launch.
How the heck did those fins survive that amount of burning and not fail? Simply incredible.
Still, ir seems to show that stainless steel was a sound call.
Even so, if we think it's a massive achievement to soft-land the booster somewhere in the oggin it's orders of magnitude harder and more challenging to dynamically place it inch-perfect (as it must be) in the chopsticks.
Wow! What exciting times!
The following users liked this post:
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Even so, if we think it's a massive achievement to soft-land the booster somewhere in the oggin it's orders of magnitude harder and more challenging to dynamically place it inch-perfect (as it must be) in the chopsticks.
The only things necessary to prove were the scaled up ability of the booster to burn back and relight engines in the same way as the Falcon, and they’ve just shown they can do that.
Accepting, perhaps, another water landing might be prudent, I can’t see where the “orders of magnitude harder” comes into play.
They’ve just notched up 300 Falcon 9 landings on the crosshairs using the same landing technology. The arms are adaptable enough to accept the demonstrated pad landing variance.
The only things necessary to prove were the scaled up ability of the booster to burn back and relight engines in the same way as the Falcon, and they’ve just shown they can do that.
Accepting, perhaps, another water landing might be prudent, I can’t see where the “orders of magnitude harder” comes into play.
The only things necessary to prove were the scaled up ability of the booster to burn back and relight engines in the same way as the Falcon, and they’ve just shown they can do that.
Accepting, perhaps, another water landing might be prudent, I can’t see where the “orders of magnitude harder” comes into play.
Another water landing to prove it wasn't a fluke and to gather more data is in order. Also, risking damage to the only launch facility they have is silly. Better to wait until the second tower is up and running.