Starship and a Human city on Mars

[Stive Pesley]

On 23/05/2024 at 20:48, Carl Sagan said:

The latest attempt to try to fly test pilots aboard Starliner went wrong with this leak, and the date for it has gone back and back. And today it was announced the will try to fly it on June 1st, the very same day that SpaceX are attempting their next Starship test! It's an  amazing juxtaposition of old vs new space. Get your scraves and flanges out to celebrate!

Still pretty cool - hope you all had your flanges out

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cl4481nz4x6o

[Carl Sagan]

What a day! What a flight test, with so much SpaceX knowhow coming together here. The catchphrase was "The payload is the data" and it's only possible for SpaceX to get so much data because of their global satellite constellation Starlink - for the first time we are seeing rocket descent through the plasma buildup from the heat of reentry into Earth's atmosphere. It's a sight to behold.

This is the biggest, most powerful rocket ever launched into space - and these are very early test flights - yet SpaceX almost always takes off on time and today was no exception. The bottom SuperHeavy booster has 33 Raptor engines. Last test, all 33 lit and performed, but this time one failed for some reason. However, there is a lot of redundancy in the system, so the launch was unaffected, all objectives met flying on 32.

Stage separation when SuperHeavy split from Starship was flawless. The SuperHeavy booster then relit the designated number of engines to send it back towards the launch site. In the future it will land back at Starbase in Texas, but for this test it "soft-landed" in the Gulf of Mexico, practising reducing its speed to zero with a final landing burn at the end. Incredible.

 

[Carl Sagan]

Here's the Starship descending through the atmosphere. The images are unreal:

 

[Carl Sagan]

Parts of Starship were burning off on the descent, this poor flap burning through yet somehow hanging in there to keep the vehicle stable. Great commentary from the joyous SpaceX team

 

[Carl Sagan]

Excitement from online commentators, and disbelief, that despite its ordeal Starship somehow made it all the way home, with a controlled soft landing in the Indian Ocean. These are the best engineers on the planet, making the vehicle that will transport us beyond it:

 

[TigerTedd]

19 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

What a day! What a flight test, with so much SpaceX knowhow coming together here. The catchphrase was "The payload is the data" and it's only possible for SpaceX to get so much data because of their global satellite constellation Starlink - for the first time we are seeing rocket descent through the plasma buildup from the heat of reentry into Earth's atmosphere. It's a sight to behold.

This is the biggest, most powerful rocket ever launched into space - and these are very early test flights - yet SpaceX almost always takes off on time and today was no exception. The bottom SuperHeavy booster has 33 Raptor engines. Last test, all 33 lit and performed, but this time one failed for some reason. However, there is a lot of redundancy in the system, so the launch was unaffected, all objectives met flying on 32.

Stage separation when SuperHeavy split from Starship was flawless. The SuperHeavy booster then relit the designated number of engines to send it back towards the launch site. In the future it will land back at Starbase in Texas, but for this test it "soft-landed" in the Gulf of Mexico, practising reducing its speed to zero with a final landing burn at the end. Incredible.

 

You know someone’s going to moan about the fish. 

[Wolfie]

Sorry but he's never going to kiss you, Carl.

[Stive Pesley]

1 hour ago, Wolfie said:

Sorry but he's never going to kiss you, Carl.

Shares in tissues and hand lotion are through the roof though!

[Carl Sagan]

27 minutes ago, Wolfie said:

Sorry but he's never going to kiss you, Carl.

Just trying to share my excitement, which isn't only mine. Was at a huge Cambridge Uni AI event last night, and every single young researcher turned out to have been watching during the day and was gripped by this future we're building. It's a wonderful thing that Humanity is attempting something so extraordinary and ambitious, and there are many with the drive and skill to start seeing this vision realized. People in the future will look back on this as our species' finest hour, when we broke the gravitational chains binding us to Earth, and started to spread beyond. Despite what seemed near insurmountable difficulties.

[Stive Pesley]

To quote the renowned astrophysicist Avi Loeb  "Humans arrogantly believe that they are important actors on the cosmic stage"

I post in this thread because I find the topic of space exploration fascinating, but I appear to be unfashionably realistic in acknowledging that Homo sapiens have only existed for approximately 0.0066% of the Earth's total existence and all of this is just an ultimately meaningless folly. Good fun to dream though

 

[TigerTedd]

2 hours ago, Stive Pesley said:

To quote the renowned astrophysicist Avi Loeb  "Humans arrogantly believe that they are important actors on the cosmic stage"

I post in this thread because I find the topic of space exploration fascinating, but I appear to be unfashionably realistic in acknowledging that Homo sapiens have only existed for approximately 0.0066% of the Earth's total existence and all of this is just an ultimately meaningless folly. Good fun to dream though

 

But by that logic isn’t life just a meaningless folly, and what’s the point in any of it. 

You never know, this could be the first step of a 10,000 year journey that eventually ends up with a human discovering the secret to saving the universe from imploding on itself.

In fact, not even the first step. It’s just another step.

Or at the end of this journey could be an Oppenheimer, only this time his worst fears come true and he starts a chain reaction that destroys the entire universe. We’ll never know, but none of it’s pointless.

[Stive Pesley]

18 minutes ago, TigerTedd said:

But by that logic isn’t life just a meaningless folly, and what’s the point in any of it.

Welcome to enlightenment my friend! 😂

[Ram-Alf]

Fcuking Wow.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/video/webcontent/web-content/vi-uqEHlicwj8kAdA?vid=CIaHiGbFybQ&provider=yt&ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=3d5e1a9a7c144a7987ddad201db25211&ei=19

[Wolfie]

Personally I think Musk is worth more than his £43.8 bn pay deal.

Can he afford SKY now?.

[Carl Sagan]

On 13/06/2024 at 11:55, Ram-Alf said:

Fcuking Wow.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/video/webcontent/web-content/vi-uqEHlicwj8kAdA?vid=CIaHiGbFybQ&provider=yt&ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=3d5e1a9a7c144a7987ddad201db25211&ei=19

I'd hate this to be skipped over because @Ram-Alf's link doesn't embed, so here it is on YouTube:

 

[Carl Sagan]

On 13/06/2024 at 11:56, Wolfie said:

Personally I think Musk is worth more than his £43.8 bn pay deal.

Can he afford SKY now?.

For those who don't know, Musk negotiated a deal with Tesla many years ago where he would work as CEO completely unpaid, but would be incentivized by the value he added to the then small EV company. And if certain impossible-sounding targets were met in terms of how Tesla became valued, he would be rewarded by a slice of that gain. As it transpired, over the years, Tesla (incorporated in the state of Delaware) became the world's most valuable car company and under the terms in the agreement, Musk was due about $50bn. One shareholder, Richard Tornetta, with only nine Tesla shares objected and engaged three firms of lawyers to stop Musk getting paid. In court, the judge asked Musk what he would possible do with the money, and he said he would spend it on Starship and building the first human city on Mars, hence this is very relevant to this thread.

The judge decided Musk shouldn't be paid the agreed sum. And now the lawyers want paying $5.6 billion for winning the case! However, the Tesla board decided this was wrong and asked shareholders to vote on moving the company from Delaware to Texas and whether the shareholders (who have benefited massively from Musk's leadership) would reinstate Musk's package (now worth a little less). The vote just happened and it was a massive, resounding yes on both counts.

The Starship development programme is incredibly risky and expensive, but this extra money gives Humanity a chance of becoming a space-faring civilization - a chance that would be much reduced had Tornetta got his way.