SpaceX's Starship Completes Fifth Test Flight - and Lands Booster Back at Launch Tower (cnbc.com) 102
Early this morning SpaceX successfully launched its Starship rocket on its fifth test flight. But more importantly, CNBC points out, SpaceX "made a dramatic first catch of the rocket's more than 20-story tall booster."
Watch the footage here. It's pretty exciting... The achievement marks a major milestone toward SpaceX's goal of making Starship a fully reusable rocket system... The rocket's "Super Heavy" booster returned to land on the arms of the company's launch tower nearly seven minutes after launch.
"Are you kidding me?" SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said on the company's webcast. "What we just saw, that looked like magic," Huot added...
Starship separated and continued on to space, traveling halfway around the Earth before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean as intended to complete the test. There were no people on board the fifth Starship flight. The company's leadership has said SpaceX expects to fly hundreds of Starship missions before the rocket launches with any crew...
With the booster catch, SpaceX has surpassed the fourth test flight's milestones... The company sees the ambitious catch approach as critical to its goal of making the rocket fully reusable. "SpaceX engineers have spent years preparing and months testing for the booster catch attempt, with technicians pouring tens of thousands of hours into building the infrastructure to maximize our chances for success," the company wrote on its website.
Watch the footage here. It's pretty exciting... The achievement marks a major milestone toward SpaceX's goal of making Starship a fully reusable rocket system... The rocket's "Super Heavy" booster returned to land on the arms of the company's launch tower nearly seven minutes after launch.
"Are you kidding me?" SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said on the company's webcast. "What we just saw, that looked like magic," Huot added...
Starship separated and continued on to space, traveling halfway around the Earth before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean as intended to complete the test. There were no people on board the fifth Starship flight. The company's leadership has said SpaceX expects to fly hundreds of Starship missions before the rocket launches with any crew...
With the booster catch, SpaceX has surpassed the fourth test flight's milestones... The company sees the ambitious catch approach as critical to its goal of making the rocket fully reusable. "SpaceX engineers have spent years preparing and months testing for the booster catch attempt, with technicians pouring tens of thousands of hours into building the infrastructure to maximize our chances for success," the company wrote on its website.
Congradulations (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: Congradulations (Score:1)
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Where did anybody mention that Musk had built the rocket all by himself?
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People he hired, or fired and hired replacements for. How many of the line workers have been at SpaceX since the beginning of the Starship project? How many have unique positions, as opposed to "Associate Software Engineer 3" or whatever?
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Musk just gave people in a hurricane disaster zone free internet until the end of the year when other carrier facilities were down.
While I'm sure there are at least a few people where their biggest concern after a storm is not being able to watch Netflix, it still comes across as a "when the only tool you have is a hammer" move by Musk.
Having been through a few storms myself, it's usually gasoline and generator shortages that are the most immediate pressing issues. Without power, your fridge rapidly becomes a biohazard if you don't start tossing all your perishables. After that's sorted out, then it's a need for money for people who
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it still comes across as a "when the only tool you have is a hammer" move by Musk.
Erm...
Having been through a few storms myself, it's usually gasoline and generator shortages that are the most immediate pressing issues.
Starlink was delivering terminals and other supplies via helicopter. And I think you're really (deliberately?) understating how vital telecommunication is in a disaster area, warzone, etc. It's one thing if your food is about to spoil, but you'll be able to manage for at least a few days, but it's a whole other thing when there's e.g. a medical emergency and you have no means to request medical supplies, evac, etc.
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Yeah, I totally forgot that during the early 2000s we un-invented things like handheld VHF radios. My bad.
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Even before then, few people had them, let alone now. Even if you dolled them out to the masses, you're talking a very wide area with likely only a single dedicated emergency channel. I'd pick the starlink terminal way before I'd go for something like that.
Re:Congradulations (Score:4, Informative)
No, Musk didn't give the people in a hurricane disaster zone free internet. They get one free month on Starlink, but they have to buy a $400 dish and at the end of their free month, they get automatically converted into a $120/month plan.
Robo-taxi doesn't have a plug. It charges - slowly - by driving over special roads w/embedded coils. There's 1/4 mile of such road in the US, so the thing is useless.
Re: Congradulations (Score:1)
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Re:Congradulations (Score:4, Insightful)
Musk just gave people in a hurricane disaster zone free internet until the end of the year when other carrier facilities were down.
Wait... when did that happen?
I ask because Starlink offered existing customers 30 days free. And non-customers 30 days free if they buy the hardware. And become subscribers.
As in, the generous offer was in fact a sales pitch.
What have you done exactly? You won't win that argument.
Zero. My net worth isn't hundreds of billions of dollars, so I have less disposable income to spend on the needy. That said, I didn't pull a sales move on people in need.
Musk is by far the most innovative and philanthropic individual alive today. By far.
Huh? I won't quibble that he's successful. I won't quibble that he's pushed some companies towards success. But in what way is he innovative as an individual? Or philanthropic in any way?
It is awesome to see all you soy-fuck Democrats cry over it.
So you derive pleasure in observing upset people? Sounds like a supporter of that American political party that's pretty famous for "every accusation is an admission". You know the ones. The ones who has a non-zero number of members convicted of election fraud? The ones trying to re-elect a man who is objectively a compulsive liar?
For the record... I'm not a soy-fuck, not a Democrat, and not crying. Sorry to disappoint. Turns out people can disagree with your bullshit without fitting in any of your convenient boxes.
The facts speak for themselves.
True. The facts are: he's a bad person. He's a narcissistic, cruel, hypocritical fraudster.
His companies are out-innovating everyone in multiple disciplines.
Get this: it's possible for a very bad person to own and control a successful business. Evidence suggests it's actually probable.
It isn't a coincidence.
No, it's not. I grant that wholeheartedly. SpaceX is trouncing Blue Origin. Tesla is only starting to lose its headway against everyone else and their charging network is superior to the point everyone else wants on board. Starlink has no meaningful competition in the market for bandwidth clutter. The Boring Company made a nice flame-thrower. Twitter is sheltering more and more racists every day.
None of that remotely changes that the guy's fundamentally an asshole.
He is the key-man in those companies and actively participates in the design and provides insane levels of leadership.
Uh... evidence suggests otherwise. There are only so many hours in the day and there are only two possibilities: a CEO is very, very important or a CEO is not very important at all. Work with me here a moment. Imagine CEOs are important. They sit around say... 8 hours a day, making crucial decisions nobody else could, after studying the reports they get from teams of underlings. Or... they're not. They basically rubber-stamp decisions that have been made obvious long before they reach the top, leaving them plenty of time to play figurehead at multiple companies.
See... if the top guy was so critical, the top guy couldn't top guy for a half-dozen massive companies. But we all know C-suite execs are more about shaking babies and kissing hands than doing actual work.
Musk provides opportunities for underlings to succeed. And that is not to be understated. That is huge. But his companies do best when he gets the fuck out of the way.
The whole "his people are great, not him" line is absolute horse-shit. Apple saw what Tesla was doing with Robo-taxi and abandoned their $10b investment into their own self-driving car. Lol.
I mean... that's one take. As is "Apple realized the tech isn't anywhere near mature and didn't bother trying to lie to the pub
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Musk just gave people in a hurricane disaster zone free internet until the end of the year when other carrier facilities were down.
Only because they were called out for gouging people. https://www.pcmag.com/news/fac... [pcmag.com]
Initially, SpaceX was going to charge its usual $120-per-month internet fee after the one-month free trial, which is significantly higher than the average home broadband bill. As a result, SpaceX faced backlash in the press, on social media, and even from government officials for allegedly running a scam to drive revenue. Today, the company updated its support page to say, "Starlink is available and temporarily offering f
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Like the Global Learning XPrize? [forbes.com] or The Foundation [texastribune.org], a donation of $100M to education in Texas? Check.
healthcare,
Like Neuralink? [qz.com]? Check.
public transit
Like The Borning Company [boringcompany.com] and Hyperloop [wikipedia.org]? Check.
clean energy
Like Electric vehicles [tesla.com], Grid-scale battery storage [wikipedia.org] and the Powerwall [tesla.com]? Check.
Sounds like this the *only* person that is able to meet your stringent criteria.
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Neuralink is less about therapeutic care, than about "I want to use my brain to play solitaire". Which is hardly a foundational piece of Mazlow's hierarchy of needs. No one is dying for lack of what Neuralink is doin.
The Boring Company and Hyperloop are both scams used by Musk as a counter to public transit. Both of these are fancy
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And someone else would fund initiatives to help even more "everyday" everyday people than you'd fund. You support the average working man? Well, I support the average working woman! You support migrant laborers? Well, I support people who are caught in active war zones! You support genocide victims? Well, I would support a museum dedicated to peoples who have already been wiped out, whose very existence is just a matter of academic speculation! Ha ha!
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And yet they didn't.
Like many company leaders, Musk provides vision.
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Oh...boy...how little you know...
He didn't have limitless cash or connections, actually. In fact SpaceX nearly bankrupted him twice because he put basically everything he had into it, twice, even at a time when it showed no promise whatsoever, the first time was after three failed launches and no successes. Remember, SpaceX started in 2002, long before he even became a billionaire. Elon wasn't even Forbes listed until 2012, a full ten years later. What's more, NASA basically ignored SpaceX until the first s
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Re: Congradulations (Score:1)
Well let's circle back to your original claim:
Let's face it though, a lot of people could have done what he did if they had limitless cash.
Elon certainly didn't at that time.
And if you have powerful connections you don't even need that.
He didn't have that either. Nobody even knew who the hell he was at the time, just some guy who made money from PayPal.
Need I also add that people who had access to both money and connections and were trying to build private spaceflight companies definitely existed at the time?
If a lot of people could do that, then why did none of them do it? Why did none of the existing companies do it? Shit, the government didn't even spend a
Re:Congradulations (Score:4, Insightful)
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And yet they didn't.
Perhaps they're content to stay in their lane. A company like Apple getting into rockets would probably go as well as Tesla buying a social media company. *cough*
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Elon Musk, as the colorful and larger-than-life front man, ends up grabbing the credit for all the things that his companies do, both accomplishments and failures.
In fact, it's the company he's put together. But you have to give his vision some credit, for steering the company the right way.
Musk himself, like most consequential men, has good points and bad points. Right now I'd say that his propensity to make decisions on impulse and to fire anybody who disagrees with him to any respect whatsoever means h
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First of all, he's not the sole proprietor. Second of all, he's more involved in the R&D than you think. If this was Neuralink, you might have a point (speak of which, the first guy to receive the implant got a job as a camera operator) and ironically your little hate club wants to see that one fail the most.
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First of all, he's not the sole proprietor. Second of all, he's more involved in the R&D than you think.
How can he when all he does is shit post to his personal social media site? Yeah I can really picture Elmo sitting down and adding his verifier signature to some cad drawings.
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Well what does he do?
Re:Congradulations (Score:5, Insightful)
Between SpaceX and Tesla, Musk is clearly the greatest industrial businessman of his generation. He’s the Henry Ford of this era.
But, just like Ford, Musk isn’t the nicest guy on the planet, he’s got an ugly side, and he’s pretty clearly past his prime. If he’s smart, he’ll get out his own way and let Tesla and SpaceX move towards their logical conclusions. He can still play a positive role as a senior leader and solidify his place in history.
https://youtu.be/WLjr3dzOUpQ?s... [youtu.be]
Re:Congradulations (Score:4, Interesting)
Ford was right, and so is Musk.
Actually, in hindsight, the concept of a car that every working man could afford ultimately created a lot of problems for society.
Now I'm not gonna sit here and hypocritically claim that I don't enjoy having my own privately-owned vehicle which I can hop in and go anywhere around town at a moment's notice, but I also can't pretend that freedom didn't come at a cost far beyond what I paid for the vehicle itself. The entire area I live in was literally designed to accommodate cars. If you ever stopped and looked at how much of the land is being utilized for roadways and paved parking lots, if this was an idea proposed today, people would call it insane.
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but I also can't pretend that freedom didn't come at a cost
My favourite line on this will always remain: "Freedom is not owning a car, freedom is not needing to own one." Someone told me this 15 years ago and I laughed in their face because I too lived in a car-dependent society. Fast forward to today after moving to Europe... I don't own a car anymore, and I travel a lot, both within the country and internationally.
Re:Congradulations (Score:5, Insightful)
And neither of these mean jack squat with respect to politics, let alone "reality, morals, and ethics." People can be geniuses in one area and have massive deficiencies in other. In fact, I'd argue that it's a lot more common for "geniuses" to be utter idiots in a wide variety of subjects than it is for them to have well-rounded knowledge.
The closest historical analogue to Musk, Howard Huges, literally had no grasp on reality during large stretches of while he still functioned as a successful businessman.
Of course, I'm dealing with a troglodyte who uses the word "cuck" in public conversation, so I'm not particularly expecting a rational response to this one.
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I love how conservatives love to throw around the word "cuck"
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I don't agree with the other post though, about Musk having a better grasp on reality, morals and ethics than the rest of us by dint of his superior intelligence. Other highly intelligent people have been spectacularly wrong before, about matters t
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I still believe that Musk will put men on Mars by 2020. If anyone can do it, Elon can!!!
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The grandchildren, if there are any, will be wondering how to pay the rent and where the next meal is coming from. It won't be dropping from space.
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No
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Quotes? You don't quote BEHAVIOR, moron.
Re:Congradulations (Score:5, Insightful)
Suck it, Musk haters! A few years from now nobody will remember who that Brazilian judge was, but our grandchildren will remember today.
There's no issue with people strongly disliking Elon, and still cheering for what SpaceX is accomplishing. It's not like you have to pick one or the other.
As for being remembered, both SpaceX and Elon certainly will. The question is whether Elon will be remembered primarily for SpaceX or his.. less savory ventures.
Re: Congradulations (Score:2)
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Can't wait to become a member of the Tres Comas club so people will ride my dick for free.
Re: Congradulations (Score:2)
I was going to be all cynical... (Score:2)
.. and say meh whats new. But thats pretty fucking impressive.
How does it know its position so accurately, GPS or some SpaceX bespoke system?
Re:I was going to be all cynical... (Score:5, Interesting)
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What's the most impressive was that the very first attempt was a complete success.
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Was kind of hoping it would fail just to see a spectacular booster explosion. At least they gave a buoy view of the ship exploding after splashdown as consolation
They have a good data from IFT4. (Score:5, Informative)
According to Bill Gerstenmaier of SpaceX, that booster's landing was within 5 centimeter of the target. So they had a great confidence that it will work. FAA license to SpaceX is for both IFT-5 and IFT-6. So I expect IFT-6 on either December or January.
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FAA license to SpaceX is for both IFT-5 and IFT-6. So I expect IFT-6 on either December or January.
It's a good thing they did because the FAA has been by far the biggest impediment to Starship, and for reasons not even related to safety, environment, etc, but basically just taking unnecessarily and excessively long periods of time to review, even kicking it back multiple times over administrative and procedural matters completely unrelated to the mission. Just pure red tape that didn't even tangle up MCAS.
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Well if you want to be cynical you can say less of a land, more of a catch. Either way doesn't reduce the significance.
Re: I was going to be all cynical... (Score:5, Funny)
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I've heard Falcon 9 uses GPS and intertial measurement, maybe some differential GPS from the landing pad. The Starship booster probably does the same, although with the pad being fixed it might not even need the GPS. The boosters are only flying for a few minutes and good optical IMUs can be extremely accurate over short integration times.
I have great respect for Spacex (Score:1, Troll)
Their scientists, engineers and craftspeople are accomplishing great things
I have lost all respect for Musk as he appears to be going insane and turning into a super-villain
Both Spacex and Tesla need new CEOs
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So you're going to replace the CEOs of these companies when they appear to be doing exceptionally well? Please explain your thought processes.
"Space man bad"
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SouthAfrikanManBad.
Re:I have great respect for Spacex (Score:4, Insightful)
So you're going to replace the CEOs of these companies when they appear to be doing exceptionally well? Please explain your thought processes.
It's not always true that a person who's brilliant at starting a company, or at ramping up a company from a garage shop to a billion-dollar venture, is also good at running one once it's grown.
If I were to give Musk advice, I'd say, quit Twitter (oops, I mean X) cold turkey, and go back to doing the things you're good at. But there's no possibioity I would ever be in a position to give him advice, nor any possibility he would listen if I did. (The second piece of advice I'd give him is to stop firing people who disagree with him, that is leading to him surrounding himself with yes-men.)
Tesla in particular I'd suggest would benefit from leadership that would guide it to a steady course actually selling cars, improving the cars it is already selling, and updating old models, rather than a wild man at the helm promising something different every five months and in between that ranting in public about the people who buy his cars.
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And yet, here he is.
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Musk is not the CEO of SpaceX.
Impressive. (Score:3)
Quite impressive. In fact SpaceX is the only company that really impresses me nowadays, it's a bit like back in the space race, except the others are way far behind currently.
I don't remember the reason of having to catch vs landing on legs like they have been doing? Is it for faster reassembly? Or to not damage the landing area?
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Re: Impressive. (Score:2, Informative)
Re: Impressive. (Score:1)
I'd say it's the people who imagine that space is like Star Trek are the ones who failed.
You need to imagine a radiation-blasted vacuum with nothing in it and what that means for you. Do you breathe? Do you eat? Do you like a certain range of humidity, pressure, and temperature?
Let me ask you this: if you take the plane to Paris, is it important that Paris exists or if the plane can land?
Re: Impressive. (Score:2)
Re:Impressive. (Score:5, Informative)
Excitement guaranteed (Score:3)
Excitement delivered.
What are the flames coming out of side of booster? (Score:3, Interesting)
And as far as musk goes. He can be associated with companies that do interesting things and also be a supreme fuckwad. The two are not mutually exclusive.
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Both Everyday Astronaut and NASASpaceFlight brought that issue during their stream.
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It's one of the methane vents, and the fire is well up in the methane cloud. There's a camera angle from the tower in the stream and you can see it. They're probably dumping excess fuel.
Some people exist to hate (Score:1)
A person could literally invent ( or help invent ) faster than light travel and cure every disease that plagues the human species on this planet and . . . .
. . . some people would STILL pour hate on them because the person who did it exhibits some traits they don't like.
Such as:
1) Wrong skin color / nationality
2) Wrong gender
3) May have differing opinions about certain concepts ( abortion, Covid, religion, Constitutional Rights, LGBQTUVWXYZ, etc )
4) Isn't a part of the " correct " political team
5) Doesn't s
Watching the SpaceX video (Score:5, Interesting)
The mission was great. The video of it is great. The achievements almost too many to count. (One that doesn't get enough mention is the ability to maintain contact through Starlink)
Yet what impresses me most are the video cuts of the SpaceX team itself. Cheering. How many companies can you name that can produce that? Although they are still there the white crew-cut horn-rimmed pocket protector members no longer dominate. I see women, black, Asian, Hispanic members of the team. And they are REALLY into it.
Elon Musk gets credit for that.
I wish I could stop there. Not too long ago I could.
I watch the SpaceX video announcers do their excellent job live-streaming and explaining everything. For the women I have to wonder what they think of Elon Musk's current politics, in full throttle support for the guy who brags about bringing about their loss of reproductive health care rights. They are in Texas, no less, where SB8 makes it law that everyone in the world has more say over what happens in their bodies than they do themselves. Beyond that, Musk has gone all in on supporting a convicted felon for president. The guy who attempted a violent coup to stay in power and Musk apparently believes that unless we install him again that will be the end of democracy. Proven grifter. Proven sex offender. Proven fraud. On record of lying more than 30,000 times over four years. [washingtonpost.com] (that is over 20 per day 24/7).
I am pretty sure you will never hear from any SpaceX or Tesla employee about their political views. That tells you a lot right there. But something tells me a majority of his employees are not going to be voting the way he would prefer.
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Yet what impresses me most are the video cuts of the SpaceX team itself. Cheering. How many companies can you name that can produce that?
You've clearly never started up a large engineering project before. To answer that question: Many companies do that. Many companies feature teams that are extremely dedicated and happy to do what they do, especially when their achievement and culminate in a single moment. The difference is you care about this one enough to look at them, and they think you care enough to live stream it.
We didn't have a film crew at the last major start-up we had, but we weren't in any less of a good mood, or any less diverse
Boeing Policy (Score:1)
Next up - more heatshield work (Score:2)
Great work flying both vehicles on target. Now they need to really get on that heat shielding. Yes it survived and made the target, and looked better than the last flight - but they wont' get licensed for landing Starship back at the launch site until they can demonstrate it not burning through control surfaces. FAA won't give them that until they can show there is not a danger of losing control surfaces while flying over populated areas (and no people, it's not FAA politics that'll drive this, it's safe