Too big to fail? NASA's Artemis moon rocket will cost $6 billion more than planned: report The Space Launch System's booster and engine are now projected to cost at least $13.1 billion over 25 years. 5/26/23 - https://www.space.com/nasa-sls-megarocket-cost-delays-report .
Upside down shower head on steroids. .... Deluge/flame deflector system under the Orbital Launch Mount. CLOSE-UP at 2:48 . .
BOEING IS GETTING ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED BY SPACEX https://futurism.com/the-byte/boeing-starliner-crew-dragon-gap
SpaceX's 2nd Starship orbital test flight should be soon. 4-8 weeks away. There have been hundreds of changes and improvements since the 1st test on April 20 '23 scroll down to "Preparations for the second orbital test flight" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship .
If I was a betting man, I'd bet that this time the booster (oddly called Starship also) burns out successfully. What happens with the upper stage is really a crapshoot. Good luck to them and I hope the government doesn't hold them up much longer.
Crazy how much the Biden admin has been openly kneecapping both Tesla and SpaceX to try and buy time for competitors to play catch up
I don't think this has anything to do with the president. It's a red tape thing. SpaceX is just faster than the usual big prime. I seriously doubt that even if the president wanted to fast track their license it would make any difference at all, except perhaps to slow it down even more.
Starship is made up of the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship kind of like Ferrari LaFerrari Super Heavy (booster) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Super_Heavy Starship (spacecraft) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_(spacecraft) .
Launch of 2nd Starship orbital test flight this morning - all 33 booster engines stayed lit this time. Tweet— Twitter API (@user) date BUT, "the booster experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly shortly after stage separation while Starship's engines fired for several minutes on its way to space." ...... or was it a planned self-destruct test? (which they had a problem with on the first test) .
Liftoff at 38:40 (see clock at lower right) Booster hot-stage separation at 41:35 and booster explodes shortly thereafter. https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-2 .
Amazing how much better those Falcon engines work without pieces of concrete bouncing off them. Booster relight needs a bit of work.
new steel 'shower head' flame deflector system worked well Last time Image Unavailable, Please Login . This time Image Unavailable, Please Login .
Launch was incredible to me… insane they can get something so big and heavy to blast off at all Booster looks like they hit the self-destruct button when the engines were failing to relight on decent. A little less clear what happened with the starship itself. Also looks like it was self-destructed on purpose.. I can’t understand why.. I guess if they ever felt like they’d lose control of where it could land they immediately blew it up. Next steps is get into orbit. Re-entry. And how to land both the booster and the starship. The landings seem like a tall task but I would have also said the same about the Falcon 9 boosters they land regularly now. Also. The liberal legacy media types that are writing hit-piece headlines to make it seem like it was a failure are just pathetic. Either they truly have no clue what is being developed, or they’re just that spiteful. Pathetic either way.
What they are doing is exactly what AFRL's Military Spaceplane office tried for years to convince Space Command they needed to do. Makes so much more sense than SLS-type systems.
COUNT'EM .... ALL 33 RAPTORS LIT . Image Unavailable, Please Login . . . Image Unavailable, Please Login . Image Unavailable, Please Login . Image Unavailable, Please Login .