SpaceX catches giant Starship booster during historic Flight 5 rocket launch and landing (video)

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I was an infant during Apollo. But grew up in it's shadow and expected (due to Apollo, Space Shuttle, Starwars, Space 1999 etc) that we would be there, I spent decades dissapointed.

I was happy to see this work, or for a big kablooey, all fantastic entertainment via social media. But where this would have been the talking point for weeks not so long ago, won't register much of a blip coz apparently, "rich man bad".

This should be a moment if you were an American, of intense pride.
 
Dec 20, 2022
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I was an infant during Apollo. But grew up in it's shadow and expected (due to Apollo, Space Shuttle, Starwars, Space 1999 etc) that we would be there, I spent decades dissapointed.

I was happy to see this work, or for a big kablooey, all fantastic entertainment via social media. But where this would have been the talking point for weeks not so long ago, won't register much of a blip coz apparently, "rich man bad".

This should be a moment if you were an American, of intense pride.
Just had to wait a bit like now and soon!! ;)
 
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Soon,, this will be labelled as "FAKE" by Fake moon landing conspiracy generation..
I remember all the launches from Gemini on up as I too young for Mercury fligfhts to remember and unbelievable how some believe it`s all fake??
Soon Artemis lll hopefully 2026..
 
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Spacex said only a few months back, that their ambition was to send 5 of these to Mars in the next launch window. 5 with up to 140 tons each, that's a serious bit of payload already there prior to any human astronauts. One successful launch like tonight isn't a guarantee of repeating it, but it's a hopeful indicator...

Anyway, the future is a nice dream, but this launch was the result of a lot of hard work that worked right now. Well done everyone at SpaceX 👍
 
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Humm, When is that "other guy" going to put anything into orbit after 25 years of messing around? Talk about the classic Tortoise and the Hare, story. The Hare started earlier and had more money but still hasn't barely even really started yet.

I know the media loves to paint a picture of a New Space Race between billionaires. Sure you can call it that, the same ways MLB players and T-ballers are both baseball players.
 
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We could've had this a year ago if not for the politically motivated FAA and EPA aparatchiks trying to protect the interests of BO, ULA, and Boeing because SpaceX is non-union. (remember the Ars Technica ULA emails expose).

It took DOD pressure to get the current permit approved.
No wonder Musk had to get political to get his program unstuck.

The next question is what fake excuse they'll use to block flight six, which could be up by Thanksgiving, likely with Block 2 Starship and Raptor 3's for a full orbital test.
 
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Quoting "Unless you grew up in JFK's Space Race and Apollo, You just cannot Appreciate HOW Difficult All this is to accomplish" from IronY

I have received Apollo Achievement Award from NASA in 1969 and was less than 30 and fortunate to work Apollo8-17 and skylab experiemnts and on design of what is now ISS and Space Shuttle.


My one of the extraordinary happy day today, if Dr. Von Braun who was also my mentor had been alive, he would have been happiest man to see this next gen success with the vision that Elon has converted to practical realism.
If he can continue on this and is not impeded by FAA etc, "inconsequential in encouragement but like a rock in obstructions"!
I know being too hard on regulators but experiments have to be encouraged.
Catch is wonderful engineering
Orbit achievement and derbit is first real success of STARSHIP.
As reentry and orbit safety increases and human rating of STARSHIP is proven, we hope that people like me,who trained Apollo Astronuats,can see humans land on Moon and beyond again?
Great achievements SpaceX settting global standards and best wishes unimpeded progress.
Ravi
 
Mar 29, 2021
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Spacex said only a few months back, that their ambition was to send 5 of these to Mars in the next launch window. 5 with up to 140 tons each, that's a serious bit of payload already there prior to any human astronauts. One successful launch like tonight isn't a guarantee of repeating it, but it's a hopeful indicator...

Anyway, the future is a nice dream, but this launch was the result of a lot of hard work that worked right now. Well done everyone at SpaceX 👍
700 tons! that's a lot of pretzels !
 
I do hope to see more frequent StarShip launches, now that the booster capture flight has been approved and was successful on its first attempt.

But, there are other obstructionists still at work against SpaceX. for instance:
https://wccftech.com/spacex-says-it...-if-starship-launches-are-suspended-by-court/ .

The "Save RGV" group is trying to convince a judge that the water discharge from the launches needs to be "adjudicated" (probably over a period of years) before SpaceX is allowed to use the deluge system again. Hoping the judge is not politically biased or hopelessly ignorant about actual environmental issues. But, if one judge won't budge, they can shop for another judge in another court with another filing.
 
Oct 13, 2024
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SpaceX launched its enormous Starship rocket for the fifth time ever today (Oct. 13), on a dramatic test flight whose goals included a mid-air catch of the first-stage Super Heavy booster.

SpaceX catches giant Starship booster during historic Flight 5 rocket launch and landing (video) : Read more
Wonderful effort by all members of the SpaceX team. At long last, NASA can now make some progress towards the Mars landing. I have been waiting a very long time for that to happen! Elon Musk does "deliver the goods", just unspeakably incredible!
 
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Catching the booster in mid-air is impressive but I knew it would work after Musk said that the flight four booster landed in the ocean with centimeter precision. Doing that is what, I think, gave them the confidence to attempt a tower capture this time.

That said, SpaceX is doing the easy part of the mission. For example, the latest Mars rover mission cost about four billion dollars but the launch to Mars cost "only" 1/4 billion. So even if Elon makes travel to Mars free, he does not save even 10% of the total cost. Even with Crew Dragon's mission to the space station. The capsule cost far more than the cost of the launch.

This is all good but SpaceX has all the hardest work ahead.
 
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Catching the booster in mid-air is impressive but I knew it would work after Musk said that the flight four booster landed in the ocean with centimeter precision. Doing that is what, I think, gave them the confidence to attempt a tower capture this time.

That said, SpaceX is doing the easy part of the mission. For example, the latest Mars rover mission cost about four billion dollars but the launch to Mars cost "only" 1/4 billion. So even if Elon makes travel to Mars free, he does not save even 10% of the total cost. Even with Crew Dragon's mission to the space station. The capsule cost far more than the cost of the launch.

This is all good but SpaceX has all the hardest work ahead.
Part of the reason why probes, telescopes, and landers are expensive to build is the size and weight limits of existing launch vehicles. They have to use exotic materials and complex folding designs to fit. (Think of the origami James Webb telescope.)

Back before they cancelled Constellation I saw a paper that proposed the ARES V could replace/supplement Hubble with a $50M low tech telescope. Newer studies have echoed this using STARSHIP.

Similarly, imagine loading a single use Starship with a couple dozen cheap landers and cubesats, refueling it fully in orbit and sending it to Mars, the asteroids, or the gas giants. Better yet, all of the above. For less than the old space Mars sample return. Imagine giving each planet its own constellation of satellites for the price of one SLS launch. An interplanetary rideshare program.

There's a reason the space sciences groups at NASA are among STARSHIP's biggest boosters: not only does it reduce NASA's launch costs, it reduces probe costs and boosts available budget to do more missions simultaneously.

All the talk about Mars colonization is but a smoke screen that hides the true impact STARSHIP offers to cislunar and deep space. And it doesn't even need reusable STARSHIPs, just the reusable superheavy and that is pretty much a certainty.
 
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Part of the reason why probes, telescopes, and landers are expensive to build is the size and weight limits of existing launch vehicles. They have to use exotic materials and complex folding designs to fit. (Think of the origami James Webb telescope.)

Back before the luddite in chief cancelled Constellation I saw a paper that proposed the ARES V could replace/supplement Hubble with a $50M low tech telescope. Newer studies have echoed this using STARSHIP.

Similarly, imagine loading a single use Starship with a couple dozen cheap landers and cubesats, refueling it fully in orbit and sending it to Mars, the asteroids, or the gas giants. Better yet, all of the above. For less than the old space Mars sample return. Imagine giving each planet its own constellation of satellites for the price of one SLS launch. An interplanetary rideshare program.

There's a reason the space sciences groups at NASA are among STARSHIP's biggest boosters: not only does it reduce NASA's launch costs, it reduces probe costs and boosts available budget to do more missions simultaneously.

All the talk about Mars colonization is but a smoke screen that hides the true impact STARSHIP offers to cislunar and deep space. And it doesn't even need reusable STARSHIPs, just the reusable superheavy and that is pretty much a certainty.

We hear this argument a lot. But what if you send people to Mars and want to provide them with electric power? Solar pannels don't work well on Mars because (1) the solar radiation is about 1/2 what it is on Earth and (2) because of dust. So you decide to send a nuclear reactor. Then you say "because he have a big rocket, our reactor can be heavy and cheap. Even a "cheap" reactor" costs a LOT more then a super heavy booster, hundreds of times more.

I worked for years at a company that did cost projections and project planning for what is now called "Space Force". Guess what was the major factor used to predict the cost of a payload? It was "mass". The cost to build a spacecraft is almost proportional to the mass. Why. Because if you give an engineer a mass budget HE WILL SPEND IT. It does not matter what the mass limit is, they will find some way to use all of it.

Cost is NEVER the manufacturing cost, that is nearly trivial. It is not the launch coast either as that is like 10% of the total. It is LABOR. If a mission takes 10 years to degin and fly you have to pay the engineers and scientists for 10 years. THAT is where all the money goes. If you fire them the mission ends. Even while the spacecraft is in coast mode to Mars, if the experts who built the thing leave the project, the project dies. You must keep the staff. OK not quite true, some staff turnover is allowable, people can retire and new hires can come up to speed but only at some reasonable rate.

In any case, heavier is not cheaper, it only saves some manufacturing cost, and that cost is already not the major cost driver. Design, testing and operation is far most then the material and machining costs.

The other argument is that Starship is not cheaper. It will take about 20 leaches from Earth to get one Starship to Mars. (most of the launches are fuel tankers). Then to get the ship back to Earth you need to somehow deliver a fuel plant and tank farm to Mars.

For round trip landing Apollo-style lander will be far less expensive, even if it leaves the landing stage on Mars. Starship is better if you are doing a one-way landing of bulk cargo
 
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We hear this argument a lot. But what if you send people to Mars and want to provide them with electric power? Solar pannels don't work well on Mars because (1) the solar radiation is about 1/2 what it is on Earth and (2) because of dust. So you decide to send a nuclear reactor. Then you say "because he have a big rocket, our reactor can be heavy and cheap. Even a "cheap" reactor" costs a LOT more then a super heavy booster, hundreds of times more.

I worked for years at a company that did cost projections and project planning for what is now called "Space Force". Guess what was the major factor used to predict the cost of a payload? It was "mass". The cost to build a spacecraft is almost proportional to the mass. Why. Because if you give an engineer a mass budget HE WILL SPEND IT. It does not matter what the mass limit is, they will find some way to use all of it.

Cost is NEVER the manufacturing cost, that is nearly trivial. It is not the launch coast either as that is like 10% of the total. It is LABOR. If a mission takes 10 years to degin and fly you have to pay the engineers and scientists for 10 years. THAT is where all the money goes. If you fire them the mission ends. Even while the spacecraft is in coast mode to Mars, if the experts who built the thing leave the project, the project dies. You must keep the staff. OK not quite true, some staff turnover is allowable, people can retire and new hires can come up to speed but only at some reasonable rate.

In any case, heavier is not cheaper, it only saves some manufacturing cost, and that cost is already not the major cost driver. Design, testing and operation is far most then the material and machining costs.

The other argument is that Starship is not cheaper. It will take about 20 leaches from Earth to get one Starship to Mars. (most of the launches are fuel tankers). Then to get the ship back to Earth you need to somehow deliver a fuel plant and tank farm to Mars.

For round trip landing Apollo-style lander will be far less expensive, even if it leaves the landing stage on Mars. Starship is better if you are doing a one-way landing of bulk cargo
Power source?
Ignore the luddite nuclear phobia.
Small modular fission reactors will do the trick for larger systems and if you haven't heard, a chinese company is doing a relatively cheap Small radioisotope nuclear "battery" using scalable semiconductor tech. BV100 if you're interested.

And yes, Starship is cheap to build. And fast. So are Raptors.

That company you worked for was it a startup or Old Space working on Cost-plus contracts? (I used to be NASA myself so I know the difference.) And yes, labor and overhead makes the bulk of costs for Old Space. Not so for commercial space startups.

For the startups (and SpaceX which is still in startup mode) pricing and accounting is more like the auto industry than the M.I.C. model.

Automation, AI controls, and additive manufacturing cut costs something fierce. Look at SpaceX staffing levels at the star factory, ignoring the construction crews, and remember where Shotwell earned her stripes.

The entire Starship business model is similar to the Air Force's replicator project: "Quantity is a quality all its own." Or Anduril's. Last century rules don't apply.

New Age, new rules.

SpaceX isn't building 2 ships a year like ULA, they're building two starships a month and ramping up to build two a week. Some will be reusable, some will be expendable, some will be custom single-launch space infrastructure (fuel depots, telecopes, orbital transfer vehicles, habs and orbital labs/factories). The Star factory is modeled around the Tesla Giga Factories for volume production, much like the Starlink satelite factory that cranks out over 120 satellites a month and is ramping up to sell backbones and customization services for other New Space companies. Modular design for mass production.

So what if it takes four V3 tanker launches to refill a deep space Starship? The tankers will be cheap *and* reusable so the only cost will be the fuel and oxidizer and spacex is already building an air liquefaction plant and a Sabatier plant is next.

Don't fret overmuch about Mars, anyway; Mars is aspirational and easy to pooh-pooh but the real impact of Starship in the next decade is cislunar. Now, if Psyche does turn out to be loaded with heavy metals, that could change. But otherwise the value of Starship is 200+ Tons to LEO at maybe $10 a pound operational cost.

New age, new rules, new math.
 
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One of the things that ChrisA talks about is the expense of the engineers to design, build, test and operate a scientific payload. But, with wider body launch vehicles that can loft heavier packages, the difficulties in doing that work for a specific mission goal can be reduced, potentially by a lot.

Of course, the asperations of scientists will also increase to utilize whatever we can get into space, so the net result may be just more more and better data frim bigger projects at the cost level that we can afford. Think big telescope that does not need to be folded and unfold automatically a million miles away, vs an even larger telescope that does need to unfold, but gets even better data.

However, there is also the potential to actually assemble an even bigger telescope in low earth orbit and then boost it out a million miles. Putting the ability to do final mission vehicle and instrument package assembly of prefab components into low earth orbit and being able to refuel it there is likely to be the biggest game changer for costs, and reliability.
 
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