SpaceX Launches Massive Starship On Its Sixth Test Flight (space.com) 103
SpaceX's Starship rocket successfully completed its sixth launch today. Not only did it carry the first-ever payload but it also briefly re-lit one of its six Raptor engines about 38 minutes into flight, a crucial milestone for future space missions. Space Magazine reports: SpaceX landed Starship's huge first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, back at the launch tower on the vehicle's most recent flight, which occurred on Oct. 13. The company aimed to repeat that feat -- which the tower achieved with its "chopstick" arms -- today, but the flight data didn't support an attempt. "We tripped a commit criteria," SpaceX's Dan Huot said during the company's Flight 6 webcast. So Super Heavy ended up coming down for a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico instead, hitting the waves seven minutes after liftoff.
Today's mission aimed to do far more than just bring Super Heavy back to Earth in one piece. SpaceX also wanted to put Starship's upper stage -- a 165-foot-tall (50 m) spacecraft called Starship, or simply "Ship" -- through its paces. The launch sent Ship on the same semi-orbital trajectory that it took on Flight 5, targeting a splashdown in the Indian Ocean off the northwestern coast of Australia about 65 minutes after liftoff. But Ship also achieved some new milestones along the way this time. For example, Flight 6 carried the first-ever Starship payload -- a plush banana onboard Ship, which served as a zero-gravity indicator. (It was not deployed into space.) In addition, Ship briefly re-lit one of its six Raptor engines about 38 minutes into the flight. (Super Heavy also employs Raptors -- a whopping 33 of them.)
This burn helped show that Ship can perform the maneuvers needed to come back to Earth safely during orbital missions. Indeed, Ship is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, just like Super Heavy; SpaceX eventually intends to catch it with the chopstick arms as well, and will likely try to do so on a test flight in the near future. Flight 6 also tested modifications to Ship's heat shield, which protects the vehicle during reentry to Earth's atmosphere.
Today's mission aimed to do far more than just bring Super Heavy back to Earth in one piece. SpaceX also wanted to put Starship's upper stage -- a 165-foot-tall (50 m) spacecraft called Starship, or simply "Ship" -- through its paces. The launch sent Ship on the same semi-orbital trajectory that it took on Flight 5, targeting a splashdown in the Indian Ocean off the northwestern coast of Australia about 65 minutes after liftoff. But Ship also achieved some new milestones along the way this time. For example, Flight 6 carried the first-ever Starship payload -- a plush banana onboard Ship, which served as a zero-gravity indicator. (It was not deployed into space.) In addition, Ship briefly re-lit one of its six Raptor engines about 38 minutes into the flight. (Super Heavy also employs Raptors -- a whopping 33 of them.)
This burn helped show that Ship can perform the maneuvers needed to come back to Earth safely during orbital missions. Indeed, Ship is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, just like Super Heavy; SpaceX eventually intends to catch it with the chopstick arms as well, and will likely try to do so on a test flight in the near future. Flight 6 also tested modifications to Ship's heat shield, which protects the vehicle during reentry to Earth's atmosphere.
While they didn't try tower catch (Score:5, Informative)
Tower appears to have some damage the precludes the attempt, the rest of the test regime seem to have gone well. They executed the in orbit relite of raptor engine in low gravity environment, successfully executed the reentry with a significant amount of reduction of heat shielding tiles and we got some very useful data. Unfortunately the lone cargo (1 banana) was lost along with the ship.
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I'm certainly no fan of Elon Musk's politics. However, I must admit I'm impressed with the successes he has achieved with SpaceX. Starship re-entry protection still needs work from what I can see, but the company as a whole is way ahead of any other launch-service company on the planet.
Even Tesla has done well, although when it comes to Cybertruck ... well, barf.
Now, if you want to look at failures, look no further than the dumpster-fire he made of Twit- uh, I mean X.
Re: While they didn't try tower catch (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's the usual celebrity effect.
In the age of social media, we can see what weirdos, dumb asshats and creepy fucks many of the movie stars, business tycoons and politicians really are.
It's not lately. It's just that before social media, they were shielded by a PR team that vetted everything that was published by, and often about, them.
Musk has been weird for a long time. I'd follow him on stock portfolio, but not on anything else. His businesses seem to succeed where he focusses on picking the right people
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Really weird? Maybe to a leftist who can't recognize patriotism.
For the vast majority of us without communist leanings, Elon is doing excellent work.
Re: While they didn't try tower catch (Score:1)
Nonsense.
EVs are less terrible than ICEVs but are still unsustainable. Over 50% of marine microplastics come from tire dust, and tires are full of toxic additives like plasticizers. Meanwhile Elon pretended to be working on a train replacement specifically to attack rail.
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That's not Replacement Theory, that's simply an article pointing to the current demographics change happening in America right now. You don't even understand what you're trying to troll me over.
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A paywalled article and a YouTube video where the title doesn't match the video's content. I guess I shouldn't be surprised coming from an AC poster.
Re:While they didn't try tower catch (Score:5, Insightful)
SpaceX and Tesla are enjoying their successes because they put in all the hard work keeping Musk away from any of the decision-making pointy ends.
Why do you guys keep repeating this? Does it just help you sleep better or something because you just can't stand the fact that a guy you hate is a hell of a lot better at this stuff than you could ever hope to be? And where are you even hearing it from? Regardless, this is simply not true. Here's a pretty well cited post on the topic:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Space... [reddit.com]
TL;DR, here's a list of the names who have attested to this:
Tom Mueller, former VP of propulsion engineering at SpaceX
Kevin Watson, developed avionics for Falcon 9, dragon at SpaceX, and formerly worked at the NASA JPL
Garrett Reisman, former astronaut and current mission assurance engineer at SpaceX
Josh Boehm, former head of software QA at SpaceX
Eric Berger, Ars Technica journalist who has interviewed countless engineers at SpaceX (his comment: "True. Elon is the chief engineer in name and reality.")
Christian Davenport, Washington Post journalist who reports on space and defense
John Carmack, I shouldn't need to tell you who this is, but here's his quote: "Elon is definitely an engineer. He is deeply involved with technical decisions at spacex and Tesla. He doesn’t write code or do CAD today, but he is perfectly capable of doing so."
Robert Zubrin, aerospace engineer and author. Another short quote: "When I met Elon it was apparent to me that although he had a scientific mind and he understood scientific principles, he did not know anything about rockets. Nothing. That was in 2001. By 2007 he knew everything about rockets - he really knew everything, in detail. You have to put some serious study in to know as much about rockets as he knows now. This doesn't come just from hanging out with people."
If you want to hate the man for his politics, go right on ahead. But hating the man just because more than likely he could even do your own job better than you ever could, that says a lot more about how much of an asshole you really are than it says anything about him. If your own sense of self-inadequacy is really that bad, perhaps you should take after rsilvergun and self-medicate with fentanyl.
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SpaceX and Tesla are enjoying their successes because they put in all the hard work keeping Musk away from any of the decision-making pointy ends.
Why do you guys keep repeating this? Does it just help you sleep better or something because you just can't stand the fact that a guy you hate is a hell of a lot better at this stuff than you could ever hope to be? And where are you even hearing it from?
I suspect he's a pretty good engineer, though I think his real talent is just being a hard working a-hole. Despite the current Tweeting I think he does (did) put in a lot of time and effort, so when he demanded the same of his employees they went along with it. That enables him to set fairly ambitious technical targets and push his folks until they achieve them.
I'm a bit skeptical about all the attestations because frankly, Musk sounds like the kind of guy who hires fanboys.
AI is a good example. You could p
Re: While they didn't try tower catch (Score:3)
I'm a bit skeptical about all the attestations because frankly, Musk sounds like the kind of guy who hires fanboys.
You might want to look through those names again.
Again, it's not that he isn't brilliant, but he thinks he's a genius, which makes him act like an idiot.
The term you're looking for would be "polymath". They've all been controversial. Every last one. They've all had about as many successes as blunders. History tends to forget the blunders, and what you're left with is distilled into flawless historical figures like these:
https://www.historyoasis.com/p... [historyoasis.com]
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The term you're looking for would be "polymath". They've all been controversial. Every last one.
Not sure about that. A polymath is someone who is knowledgeable in many areas. Eccentricity and controversy are not necessarily in the package, but they often are displayed.
They've all had about as many successes as blunders. History tends to forget the blunders, and what you're left with is distilled into flawless historical figures like these:
^^ This. [Snipped the link, although I enjoyed reading the list.]
I'm not surprised to see Isaac Newton on the list. He was certainly controversial. He was also a complete asshole, engaging in ruthless behaviour against his contemporaries (like Leibnitz) and sending counterfeiters to the gallows with fiendish glee as head of the mint.
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First four are current/former SpaceX employees, then some reporters presumably sourcing from SpaceX employees, but there are some other names down there too so you may be right.
Though I'm not sure I'd call him a polymath since I haven't really seen evidence of expertise outside of hardware engineering. Some stories (admittedly poorly sourced) imply his coding sucked, and his understanding of AI is problematic.
I'm thinking of a different model.
He's a good engineer and a fantastic engineering manager. But he'
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The term you're looking for would be "polymath". They've all been controversial.
Don't get me started. What about that arsehole Isaac Newton? Religious nutjob, spent half his life on alchemy.
Once "tweeted" that "Hypotheses have no place in experimental science." Died a virgin.
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Now, if you want to look at failures, look no further than the dumpster-fire he made of Twit- uh, I mean X.
Is that really true? Twitter was a bloated dumpster-fire of a business before. Now it is a lean dumpster fire :)
I've been reading the Walter Isaacson's book, about the Blue-tick fiasco, the Paul Pelosi conspiracy tweet and so on, and how Musk scared off the advertisers.
But it does seem that on the technical/internal side, they were successful at dramatically reducing the bloat at Twitter, while keeping it functioning. It did not collapse as so many predicted. Users are still there, advert
Re:While they didn't try tower catch (Score:4, Funny)
he never invented anything
he is just spending government money
he enables fascists on twitter
he promised we would be driving self-driving cars on Mars by now, just to get money from investors
he killed my dad
Re:While they didn't try tower catch (Score:4, Insightful)
An engine relight in space is definitely not a failure...
Re: While they didn't try tower catch (Score:2)
Re: While they didn't try tower catch (Score:1)
Oh look, prosperity theology on slashdot. Just as many idiots here as average. How fucking sad.
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Tower appears to have some damage the precludes the attempt
I was curious as to why they did not attempt the catch. Thank You for the info :)
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Tower appears to have some damage the precludes the attempt
I was curious as to why they did not attempt the catch. Thank You for the info :)
A damaged telemetry antenna on top of the Launch tower that (presumably) provides data for the catch system. You could see that it was bent partially over.
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So their antenna has Peyronie's Disease?
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So their antenna has Peyronie's Disease?
Yeah, kinda like that - lols
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That's what she said.
Re:While they didn't try tower catch (Score:4, Interesting)
The raptor engine is the real star for me. They appear to have had all engines work flawlessly throughout the entire test. Given that there are 39 engines on each stack, it's rapidly gaining some very impressive reliability figures. With an engine that is performing that well, bizarrely, the things like flipping and landing are not that difficult from a controls perspective - high control authority is the key to making control systems simple, though I guess there is a bit of 'seat of the pants' due to the limited propellent available to manoeuvre.
Raptor V3 looks very impressive, and they are still boosting the thrust numbers on it. I can see why they want to fish them out of the ocean - China/Russia/Bezos etc would love to get their hands on an engine.
Re: While they didn't try tower catch (Score:2)
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Are you saying they land at the same tower they took off from?
The takeoff and landing towers do such different jobs it just didn't occur to me they might be the same.
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Yes, it lands back in the same place so it can be refueled and launched ASAP
Cue banana jokes in 3..2..1.. (Score:1)
"Is that a banana in your Ship or are you just happy to see me?"
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And specifically for Starship using a banana for scale comparison fails miserably https://timesofindia.indiatime... [indiatimes.com]
give it a rest, anon coward (Score:5, Insightful)
Elon's NOT "protecting Russia". Elon provided a bunch of Starlink terminals and lots of bandwidth to Ukraine as a charitable act for a people horribly victimized by an unjust war, BUT doing a charitable act for somebody DOES NOT obligate you to join in as a partisan in a war effort. When the Ukrainians started using those Starlink connections to guide weapons onto Russian targets, Elon disabled that activity. He never volunteered either himself or his company to fight on either side in a war, and given that he's not a citizen of either country he is not available to be conscripted.
As for the war ending long ago if only Elon had allowed his stuff to be used by one side as a weapon, well THAT complaint could equally be lodged against a LOT of people around the world. If only the British or French arms industries had allowed their products to be used... If only the Japanese had allowed their military and industrial might to be used... if only the people at Lockheed and Northrop had allowed all their tech to be used...
The war is one great big immoral act, but it does not justify the further immoral act of dragging-in outside people or outside companies and forcing them to join in.
Oh, and IIRC the US Govt at some point decided to pay Elon to provide some Starlink coverage in Ukraine, bat that still would not obligate him to become a party to the war if his contract does not require it.
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When the Ukrainians started using those Starlink connections to guide weapons onto Russian targets, Elon disabled that activity. He never volunteered either himself or his company to fight on either side in a war, and given that he's not a citizen of either country he is not available to be conscripted.
Actually it's more specific than that: They were literally attaching the terminals to drone watercraft, in effect directly turning them into a weapon. That wasn't just an Elon decision either. I read r/ukraine a fair bit, and although I COMPLETELY support Ukraine in its war with Russia, I got annoyed the way most of them reacted to that (most of them aren't even Ukrainian, btw, they're just garden variety progressive shitbags like the idiot you replied to.) Oddly, they sing praises about Gwen but shit on El
Re: give it a rest, anon coward (Score:2)
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And if you actually know what lead to this war then it is not such an unjust war at all
(I'm not saying russia didn't gave alterior motives and would be really nice guys, as they aren't, but it isn't as black and white as people think it is, just like the annexation of Crimea, it all leads back to the coupe in 2014, which wouldn't have been possible without the help of the west).
What lead to the war was EU association agreement. Ukraine's crime was exercising its right of self determination in seeking to join the EU.
Neither was there a coup. There was a popular uprising involving millions of people that blew up in the governments face after they started cracking down by killing protesters. Yanukovych fled and therefore was subsequently ousted by duly elected Ukrainian parliament by vote of 328 to 0. To this day he is wanted in Ukraine for mass murder. A coup is when a faction
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Elon provided a bunch of Starlink terminals and lots of bandwidth to Ukraine as a charitable act for a people horribly victimized by an unjust war, BUT doing a charitable act for somebody DOES NOT obligate you to join in as a partisan in a war effort. When the Ukrainians started using those Starlink connections to guide weapons onto Russian targets, Elon disabled that activity. He never volunteered either himself or his company to fight on either side in a war, and given that he's not a citizen of either country he is not available to be conscripted.
Charity? We, meaning the US taxpayers, pay that bill every damn month. He gave them a few (and most of those were paid for via donations) terminals. How dare you insinuate he did, or is, giving them "free" internet. That's a bald face lie, USAID (a TAXPAYER funded agency) paid at first for both terminals and services.
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Later it was moved to the US DoD funding.
The war is one great big immoral act, but it does not justify the further immoral act of dragging-in outside people or outside companies and forcing them to join in.
We know, and people didn't want to stop some German leader in 1938 either. Never mind the current Russian leade
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Elon's NOT "protecting Russia".
I wish I could believe that. Starlink terminals know their location on earth via GPS and or multilateration, each have a unique Starlink identifier and each are linked to corresponding subscriber accounts.
So why do Russian invaders continue to use Starlink in Ukraine? Is there a plausible explanation for this other than Elon protecting Russia?
Perhaps drawing a polygon on a map and whitelisting identifiers and or accounts within the polygon is too much of a technical challenge? After all ray casting is ve
Re: Ask yourself: Who’s the real enemy of th (Score:2)
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Re: Ask yourself: Who’s the real enemy of t (Score:2)
What LED to this war was Puto's desire to reform the Soviet Union.
Period, end of story.
Ukraine wouldn't even be trying to join NATO if not for Russian aggression.
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The fact you don't know about it says enough about your knowledge of what actually lead to this war and what the war is about. But that's certainly on many western media outlets as they present a skewed view.
I'm no russian, I'm from the netherlands, but I actually read up on what actually lead to this war and what this war is about.
Re: Ask yourself: Who’s the real enemy of t (Score:2)
Try not reading it on RT next time.
Oh look mobile has posting delays now. That only took what, half a decade?
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And surely we could have declared Peace for our Time [wikipedia.org]!
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Or maybe Ukraine decided that they weren't going to sign away their sovereign rights (external entities denying them freedom of association and allies, limiting military) after being illegally invaded by a neighbor, and especially after that neighbor started committing documented war crimes against the Ukrainian people [wikipedia.org]:
The negotiations in Turkey produced the Istanbul Communiqué. It proposed that Ukraine end its plans to eventually join NATO, have limits placed on its military, and would have obliged Western countries to help Ukraine in case of aggression against it. The talks almost reached agreement, with both sides considering "far-reaching concessions", but stopped in May 2022, due to several factors, including the Bucha massacre.[7] Following the 2022 Ukrainian eastern counteroffensive, Russia renewed calls for peace talks, but Russian government sources suggested that Putin is not truly committed to peace and was simply stalling for time while its forces trained and replenished for a future advance.
And, of course, Russia's demands are even more ridiculous in that they claim they should be able to keep whatever land they've occupied, as well as a lot more they just want but can't actuall
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Uhm, if Johnson hadn't pressured Zelensky back at the start of the war after two months NOT to sign the peace treaty, this war could have been over a long time ago. The west is why this war is still waging.
There was no peace treaty waiting to be signed. While ongoing work to find agreement between the parties no tentative agreement was ever reached. At the time fresh revelations of Russian atrocities in Bucha hampered mood and public sentiment for ongoing peace efforts of which this would be one of many attempts that would ultimately fail.
It isn't clear what impact if any Johnson actually had in expressing his opinions about trusting Russians and expressing his countries ongoing support for Ukraine. Beyond
Actual progress. (Score:5, Insightful)
I enjoy hearing about SpaceX's progress. I'm not sure why the peanut gallery has to turn every step of SpaceX's journey into another chance to rant about political bullshit that has little to nothing to do with SpaceX other than it may tangentially relate to the company mouthpiece, but this is the type of story I actually appreciate coming up on Slashdot.
If only all the people whining about how political everything is could set aside their own need to bitch about politics on literally every single story. Musk may not be perfect, but SpaceX is impressive regardless of who may be involved in their success. Aren't we all tired of having to pretend that the world is a perfect place if not for Elon Musk? Good grief.
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I'm not sure why the peanut gallery has to turn every step of SpaceX's journey into another chance to rant about political bullshit that has little to nothing to do with SpaceX other than it may tangentially relate to the company mouthpiece
It's because Musk has purposely chosen to become heavily involved with politics and it turns out his views are not only highly partisan but conspiracy prone and outright racist (his support for replacement theory). If he were a regular billionaire who kept to the background in regards to politics (as he did early in his career) this wouldn't be happening.
Basically, look no farther than Musk himself for why this happens
I've been saying for years that Musk is his own worst enemy. I still don't understand why *EVERY* SpaceX achievement has to turn into political shitstorm 45 of whatever day it happens on. These assholes are bound to stir up shit in other ways. Let's let the achievements be the achievements and argue about politics elsewhere. Sometimes it'd be nice to escape the *CONSTANT* prattling about politics that makes zero god damned difference other than making sure we're all miserable from talking about politics.
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I just don't think anyone should be surprised that politics comes up any time Musk or one of his business's are mentioned considering the lengths he goes to put himself in the spotlight with stuff like this.
It's like being surprised about a Slashdot post about Trump's social media company turning to politics. Given that both men have purposely put themselves at the center of US politics (not to mention their stupid culture war nonsense) in incredibly divisive ways the conversation is just sort of bound to t
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I just don't think anyone should be surprised that politics comes up any time Musk or one of his business's are mentioned considering the lengths he goes to put himself in the spotlight with stuff like this.
It's like being surprised about a Slashdot post about Trump's social media company turning to politics. Given that both men have purposely put themselves at the center of US politics (not to mention their stupid culture war nonsense) in incredibly divisive ways the conversation is just sort of bound to turn to politics.
Plus, Trump being in power turns the American political volume knob up several more notches than we're used to. Trump's last presidency saw mass race based protests, white supremacists storming Charlottesville, and finished with rioters trying to stop the certification of our election. Everything political is heightened with him in power. He brings out the worst in the US and we've got 4 years of this to look forward to.
And apparently the Slashdot crowd is eager to get that party started. I'm generally sickened by how everything has become political over the last decade and some change. Some seem to relish it. We give these cretins too much attention. I'm more of the opinion we should let the achievements stand without bringing up the madmen behind them, but apparently some enjoy shining the spotlight on the filth. Oh well.
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And apparently the Slashdot crowd is eager to get that party started.
To be fair I think the party started with the election and I don't think Slashdot is any different than the rest of America in regards to this.
I'm more of the opinion we should let the achievements stand without bringing up the madmen behind them, but apparently some enjoy shining the spotlight on the filth.
Heh, try pointing to anything even remotely good Hitler might have done. Lots of people don't like attributing virtues to people they perceived as bad.
Note: In the case of Hitler it's perfectly clear he was a monster of a human being but he did protect wild places as an example of some small good he did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . People should be able to acc
Re: Actual progress. (Score:2)
Everything was always political. That's what happens when you have at least three people with at least two opinions between them. Crying about not wanting things to have political ramifications and pretending they used to not is just showing us all how weak your grasp on reality is.
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Communists like skam240 will speak out of both ends saying that 1) it's not happening and 2) it's a good thing that it is.
Far starters, your link does nothing to suggest that the demographic change happening in America is the "goal" of anyone. It literally just outlines the changes happening to this country that are happening as a natural result of current immigration. Immigrants don't come in mass from Europe anymore, they have a nice standard of living over there nowadays. They come from country's with brown people so of course that's going to change the racial make up of America. No bullshit conspiracies required to underst
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Aw, thanks for confirming I'm talking to human garbage. That's super!
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"Replacement theory" is a conspiracy theory.
The conspiracy: "they" want to change the electorate because apparently brown people vote Democratic. Never mind that Trump got the highest share of the Latino vote that a Republican candidate has ever gotten, but ok sure.
The reality: white Europeans don't need to emigrate to the US, because Europe already has an equal standard of living and economic opportunity. South / Central American countries don't. And South / Central America is predominantly populated wi
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I enjoy hearing about SpaceX's progress. I'm not sure why the peanut gallery has to turn every step of SpaceX's journey into another chance to rant about political bullshit that has little to nothing to do with SpaceX other than it may tangentially relate to the company mouthpiece, but this is the type of story I actually appreciate coming up on Slashdot.
If only all the people whining about how political everything is could set aside their own need to bitch about politics on literally every single story. Musk may not be perfect, but SpaceX is impressive regardless of who may be involved in their success. Aren't we all tired of having to pretend that the world is a perfect place if not for Elon Musk? Good grief.
Musk is extremely political and leverages his business success for political objectives, so I think it's fair game. I'm not going to stand around here and pump up his balloon just so he can then use that prestige to subject my friend to Russification.
But when /. does put up a SpaceX article it might be wise to put up another Musky article to give people somewhere to vent. I do have a strong urge to punch Musk in his non-figurative face for all the crap he's pulling and it would be nice if /. didn't seem to
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I enjoy hearing about SpaceX's progress. I'm not sure why the peanut gallery has to turn every step of SpaceX's journey into another chance to rant about political bullshit that has little to nothing to do with SpaceX other than it may tangentially relate to the company mouthpiece, but this is the type of story I actually appreciate coming up on Slashdot.
If only all the people whining about how political everything is could set aside their own need to bitch about politics on literally every single story. Musk may not be perfect, but SpaceX is impressive regardless of who may be involved in their success. Aren't we all tired of having to pretend that the world is a perfect place if not for Elon Musk? Good grief.
Musk is extremely political and leverages his business success for political objectives, so I think it's fair game. I'm not going to stand around here and pump up his balloon just so he can then use that prestige to subject my friend to Russification.
But when /. does put up a SpaceX article it might be wise to put up another Musky article to give people somewhere to vent. I do have a strong urge to punch Musk in his non-figurative face for all the crap he's pulling and it would be nice if /. didn't seem to go out of its way to avoid those somewhat relevant stories.
While it would further politicize Slashdot in general, I can see honeypotting shit-stirring Musk articles surrounding SpaceX or Tesla articles being a good filter move.
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Complaining about something being 'political' is often shorthand for saying it doesn't affect you, but not everyone has that luxury. In my case, as a trans woman, I can't help but notice that he donated $50,000,000 to a PAC in 2022 that ran anti-transgender attack ads, nor that he spent $100,000,000 in 2024 supporting Donald Trump's presidential campaign (with total spending on anti-transgender attacks surpassing $200,000,000).
EVs and Space Rockets are cool and all, but when that financial success results i
Why should I be impressed? (Score:2)
This is their sixth flight and they haven't even reached orbit yet.
The third flight of the Saturn V fifty six years ago took three men to the moon.
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Um... No. Apollo 7 was the first flight to be manned. And that sure didn't go anywhere near the moon. There were quite a number of unmanned flights before that as well.
Apollo 10 flew men around the moon for the first time. Was certainly NOT the third flight of the Saturn V.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Why should I be impressed? -Apollo 8 (Score:1)
Starship is far more ambitious (Score:3)
The Saturn V was a huge achievement, especially for its time, and a credit to the engineers who flew it so successfully despite its many issues. It could lift an impressive 140 tons to LEO. But it was also ~$1.5 billion per launch in today's dollars, and that all got tossed in the sea every time.
Starship is much more capable, around twice as powerful, yet is a fraction the cost at ~$100M to build and launch. It can lift around 230 tons to LEO when fully expended, so it is more than capable right now of loft